


Conviction

by idola



Category: Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Merpeople, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-16
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2018-09-25 00:27:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 32
Words: 201,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9794318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idola/pseuds/idola
Summary: Sirens have everything - power in the form of magic, a lifespan that other creatures can hardly comprehend, and a world to themselves at the bottom of the sea.Having everything gets boring.Stories of the world above spur Judar into surfacing. But instead of falling in love with a prince like in the stories, he decides to lend his power to an assassination plot.





	1. Chapter 1

The sea is as deep as it is wide - from the surface, it is impossible to imagine how far it goes. For a human born to the land, the sea was a mystery so deep that not even the most determined explorer could understand its depths.

At the very bottom of the sea, so far that humans could only reach in death and imagination, life went on. In a form not fish and not human, beings of magic reigned over the sand and carcasses from above. Though they lived only in small groups, their longevity ensured their survival.

In a place too dark to see with eyes, the people of the sea used magic to make their harsh environment home. Rukh glittered when they swam, illuminating the vivid color of their tails and strikingly human faces. It would have been a sight to see if only there were scenery to appreciate it with.

The rukh was the energy sirens used to live— one that only they could perceive. Though everything from the ocean itself to its inhabitants, even the sand they swam above had rukh, sirens were the only creatures blessed with the ability to see it. Use of the rukh was their means to live.

Just by directing the rukh with a finger, a siren could cast magic: vibrations of sound stronger than any whale’s voice, forcing a blossom of algae in a place that the sun would never reach, amplifying the water current tenfold. Such miraculous feats were nothing but a fact of life to them.

For harder commands, the rukh would listen to their words. With only fish, squid, whales, and the occasional stalk of kelp to eat, the sirens often called on the rukh to boil the blood within a fish to kill it quickly and easily. Others preferred to use ice in spears more deadly than the sharpest of rocks, while others still used different techniques altogether and crushed every one of their next meal’s bones to stop it quickly and painfully.

Though it was a place incomprehensible to humans, to the people who lived there with their magic and fish tails, it was the only world they would ever know. Rock formations, unchiseled, existed in their natural state as protection. Pockets of raw minerals smoothed out rough edges and bounced back in the colors of the rukh when light hit them, though it almost never did. Darkness was the only color many of its inhabitants could describe.

The sea’s sanctuary was peaceful, if anything.

Even so, its inhabitants, who were human-like in nearly every regard, often told stories of the world of light far above. Some of the adults had swam to lighter waters and basked in the beauty of rainbow fish and corals. There were even the brave few who ventured above the water, poking their heads out to see the vast world on top of the ocean and watched the setting sun at the cost of their sight. But since sight was useless at the bottom of the sea, it was not a bad trade.

Stories from those who had ventured into the unknown above paved the imagination of the youth. “It was beautiful,” Scheherazade, the oldest in the colony always said. “What I first saw was a glittering abyss. I thought there must be fish in the sky, too, or maybe stray rukh. Apart from the lights, everything was a different color from the ocean. Down here, space is colorless. Up there… it must have been the color of something precious. A color that every human surely treasures.” She paused, sighed dreamily, and continued. 

“I stayed until the sun rose. It was a disk of pure light and at first I thought it to be the source of all rukh - brighter than the brightest spell, and warmer than anything I’d felt before. I stared and stared until I couldn’t see it anymore… I have lived many years now without sight and can say with confidence that losing it to the sun that day is not one of my regrets.” 

“Was there anything else up there?” Aladdin, the youngest of them all asked. “Did you swim into the sky? What about the humans?”

Scheherazade smiled and pet his head softly. “That is a story from many hundreds of years ago, child. Don’t let it bother you too much.”

Titus and Judar always groaned along with Aladdin. “Tell us more,” Titus would say. “You never explain the whole thing! You only give a story about going to the surface or meeting a human or being chased by a lion, but you never go from start to finish.”

“It would only cause you children trouble if I did.”

“Not a child,” Judar had started arguing lately, “Just tell the brats to go play somewhere else and tell me then.”

“Judar, you’re only twenty. While you may be mature physically, you haven’t lived hundreds of years yet. It would be rash of me to put ideas into your head.”

“Don’t give me that shit! You weren’t that old when you went up either. Tell me about the land.”

“I heard that in other territories fifteen year olds are allowed on the surface," Titus said. "Why can’t we go?”

“What do you want to accomplish by seeing it?” Scheherazade asked.

“I just want to see the sky,” Titus answered. "You've described it so vividly that I feel as if I must see it myself."

“I want to leave this boring place,” Judar said.

“And go where?”

“To the land. There’s nothing here.”

Scheherazade smiled. “Did someone tell you story of the siren who fell in love with a human?”

“Everyone knows that old story.”

“Yunan told me one where the human turned out to be a ‘lady killer,’” Titus added. “Are all humans like that? A lady is another kind of human, right? Do they kill each other? Why do they do that?”

Scheherazade gasped. “That Yunan, telling you kids strange things. I will have a word with him next time he decides to come see us.”

“Yunan knows about humans too?" Judar asked Titus. "I didn’t think he was capable of leaving his home for that long. What’d he say?”

“He said he met one once, a sailor.”

“What’s a sailor?”

Titus thought for a moment, trying to recall Yunan’s fantastical description of a human thing called a ship. “They command these large rocks that sit on top of the water. They don’t sink like our rocks. And the current is stronger the higher up you go and the ship catches the current and moves. Just like it’s alive!”

Judar tried to imagine the ship, a pile of rocks so light they swayed in the current. “What about that sailor guy? Was he like in the stories?”

“I guess he was really horrible. Yunan said he tried to reproduce with everything that moved.”

Judar laughed.

“T, Titus!” Scheherazade gasped. She had already secured her hands around Aladdin’s ears so he didn’t hear the rest of the story. “Yunan told you that?”

“Is there something wrong with it, Lady Scheherazade?” Titus asked.

“N, no…” She mumbled, fretting over the best way to explain. “I just don’t think this is really an appropriate story. And you know Yunan, he probably made it up on the spot to make you forget he had no food to offer you for your visit.”

Titus agreed, but the story left Judar deep in thought. From the time he was Aladdin’s age, Judar had decided he wanted nothing to do with eternal life in the darkest part of the sea. Scheherazade’s magic may make it comfortable, but it didn’t make it any less boring. He had things he wanted to do that had nothing to do with anyone at the bottom of the sea. But it would be rash to act on his own, to just go to the surface with no information. So he had been listening intently to the stories of those who had gone to get an accurate picture of the surface before leaving.

It would take a day’s worth of swimming, maybe more to reach the surface. In the past he thought it wasn’t worth it since he would have to find the mythical place called land, vastly different from both the sea and the sky, just to glance at humans.

Once Scheherazade had even told him that if he ever tried to leave the sea, his tail would tether him to the shore since it was the place he belonged. So he hadn’t tried leaving, not yet. His tail might betray him and keep him bound to the sea.

But he was bored. There was nothing interesting and no one interesting in all of the sea, and he wanted to see how his own hair looked and what color his scales were. His body’s rukh had never bounced off of anything like Aladdin’s did and never illuminated the depths of the sea. Even Titus created quite a few sparks when playing with the others, enough for Judar to see hair as long and as bright as Scheherazade’s, who was always surrounded by enough rukh for her closed eyes to be seen.

He wanted to see more than just illuminated pieces, and wanted to know more than what the elders said. The sea was too quiet and too motionless for Judar, and the people were too content with their boring lives for him. He wanted to see land and those people - humans - who were rumored to thrive on conflict. Wanted to see anything, anything but the depths of the sea.

Once Scheherazade grew tired and the group broke up, Judar left to see Yunan. He was a bit of a mystery, but more than that, he was an antisocial old siren. The last time Judar saw him was years ago - he’d never even thought to wonder if Yunan had ever left his home long enough to see the surface before. That was how little he got out.

It took Judar awhile to find Yunan’s home. He didn’t have the best sense of direction and, for how small their colony was, it had plenty of hiding places that were just uncomfortable and cramped enough to suit Yunan’s tastes.

Luckily he was able to find it before he got distracted.

“Judar?” Yunan asked once he reached the entrance of Yunan’s cave.

“How’d you know?”

“You’re the only one with that kind of rukh here. Well, come in. All I have is seaweed, but…”

“You can see it?”

“Huh? See what?”

“My rukh, duh. I never see it.”

“You need to get out more then. It’s dark, so try going up until there’s light.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” Judar said. “Titus says you’ve seen humans and stuff.”

“Oh, yeah. What a curious child, coming all the way here to ask me if I’ve been to the surface.”

“And it sounded like you went on one of their structures, and even talked to them.”

“I did,” Yunan said as he placed some wrapped seaweed in Judar’s hands. It felt more like a souvenir than food. “So what?”

“Tell me how you did it. With your tail, I mean.”

“Be a little more polite when asking someone for a favor,” Yunan whined. “You never were very nice, were you?”

“Shut up! I just want to know what you did.”

“Not until you ask nicely.”

Judar almost growled and pulled at Yunan’s hair like he’d have done to Aladdin, but thought better of it. If he was remembering right, Yunan was stubborn enough that he really wouldn’t tell him if he did something like that. “Come on, I really wanna know. Please.”

“It was just a little bit of magic,” Yunan finally answered. “I can teach you, if you’d like. But it drains the magoi within yourself to use it constantly. It is very tiresome being on land for a long time. That’s why everyone who went has already returned to the sea.”

“I’m good at magic,” Judar argued. “Better than you and Scheherazade both.”

“Are you sure about that?” Yunan asked. “There are endless types of magic— we aren’t limited to what can be used to hunt.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing, nothing. It doesn’t matter. You are quite the talented ice magician, it’s true.”

Yunan tapped his finger against a shell he kept hung from the rocky overhang. “It is possible to put magoi in things like this shell to lessen the burden on our bodies. Scheherazade stayed up there for centuries, if I’m remembering right.”

“Without her tail?”

“It’s more than just getting rid of your tail. You need legs, which are like tails but can walk on land. And you need stronger lungs, which are like gills that can breathe air.”

Yunan tapped the shell again. A bright light reflected for a moment, illuminating the white-rock cave. “And you need other things, too, if you plan to be with the humans. A mouth that can speak their language and a body that can not only fool humans but also captivate them. All of these things require magic, and all of them disrupt your body’s natural flow of magoi. There may be nothing more painful and exhausting than living like that.”

“I don’t need all that,” Judar said. “Just show me how to go on land.”

“I put magoi in this shell just now,” Yunan said. “It was only enough for a few days of being on land at most, and that’s with the help of the rukh around here. You will need to gather magoi in something - something precious to you that you’ll never lose, like that choker you always wear - and keep gathering, and gathering, and gathering. When it can’t hold any more magoi, come back here and I will go to the surface with you and teach you the magic you need.”

Judar touched the shell curiously. Sure enough, magoi the same as Yunan’s rukh resonated within it. He couldn’t see it, but he felt it pass through his fingers. “Can’t I just keep it in my body? There’s no point of putting it in anything else.”

“There is. You might use it all accidentally if you keep it within yourself. In a vessel, you can pace your magoi useage far more easily. Take out a bit each morning if you’re having trouble holding your form, and always be sure to monitor the amount inside. It’s especially useful when your body’s magoi is constricted by a form it isn’t supposed to take. Hopefully you’ll be able to maintain it just with the rukh on land, but…”

“What’s a morning?”

Yunan sighed, ignoring Judar’s interruption. “Unless you’re certain that you want to go, don’t bother. It’s good to have experiences and all, but it’s really tiresome going all the way up. And I just know you won’t stop badgering me until you lose interest.”

Judar rolled his eyes. There was a reason he never visited Yunan.

Afterwards Judar began transferring his own magoi into his jewelry. For as long as he could stand being in the sea, he stored power.

In the meantime, he continued to act as normal. If anyone had noticed his extra magoi and changes in habits, they didn’t comment. Judar didn’t really feel the need to gloat about it either. Scheherazade would probably try to convince him to stay if he said anything, and he didn’t feel like dealing with her. His mind was made up.

Normally, Judar did almost all of the hunting for the colony. Not because he wanted to bring them food, but because he was bored and chasing down a whale was a good way to practice magic. He continued gathering food to ease his boredom but switched to easier targets. Brittle stars and tripod fish that couldn’t swim away fast enough were the easiest.

It was annoying because Titus enjoyed taking Judar’s place as the best hunter and easily made up for what he wasn’t doing. Judar almost forgot his goal and competed with Titus to see who could catch a whale first several times before he remembered he had to make up an excuse and save his energy instead.

The rukh in the deep sea was said to be thinner than the rukh on the surface. Because of that it took a long time to save magoi. But with his goal in reach, it wasn’t too hard to find the patience to see it though.

Not having enough magoi to hunt after pouring it into another vessel was more draining than he’d originally thought. His restlessness grew and grew, curiosity only building with nothing but Scheherazade’s stories to sate his desire to see the surface.

“A long time ago, sirens used to eat humans,” she said. “We began to look more and more like humans to lure them to the coast, unsuspecting, and ate them - just like sardines.”

Sardines were a delicacy of shallower water. Judar had only tried them once or twice before. “How’d the humans taste? Did they taste like sardines too?”

"I don’t know. I would never be able to eat one. Their faces are just like ours. Just like it's impossible to tell the rukh of the different kinds of fish apart for us, it's impossible for us to tell just by looking at them that they're different from us.”

"How do you know? You're blind."

She smiled. “Because they said so. Everyone's faces are different and the same. But that's where the similarities stop. Humans have no scales, only skin. And they have no tails.”

Judar had heard that before, but as usual, couldn’t help commenting. “They sound gross.”

Scheherazade giggled. “Instead of a tail they have legs to stand on the ground with. Because the land doesn’t nurse them in the same way the sea does for us, they have to stand on their own two legs. They can’t swim through the sky. They can only look up at it in wonder.”

Scheherazade always sounded so dazed when she talked about the world outside of the sea. As a kid, Judar had always thought it was a world past the bounds of what he would ever see, and assumed for some time that it was also outside the bounds of what Scheherazade would have ever seen. But, as he’d learned over the years, Scheherazade had seen it.

It was hard to comprehend why she came back to the dark and boring sea after hearing her stories. She only sounded alive when she was talking about the past she’d spent together with humans.

He spent every day like that, the same as he always had done, knowing that soon those days would end and he would leave for the world on the other side of the ocean. It didn’t give him any urge to cherish the people he’d grown up with. He felt nothing but excitement with the thought of leaving.

After a few months passed, though it was impossible to know time in the deep sea, his choker began to reject any more magoi.

Judar swam his way over to Yunan’s home as fast as he could, excited for his future that would be more interesting than anything he’d had the chance until now to experience.

“It looks like you’re pretty determined,” Yunan noted as Judar entered. “This isn’t the first time someone’s asked me to teach them how to go up, you know. But most give up when faced with the burden of storing magoi daily. How have you felt not having any energy for magic? Scheherazade has been stressed since our best hunter hasn’t been catching anything.”

“It doesn't matter. From here it’s just swimming up, right? Hurry up. You said you’d show me the magic up there.” It probably wouldn’t be too difficult for Judar to figure it out himself if he’d ever seen a human, but as he was now, depending on Yunan was his best option. It'd be far too difficult to create a human body with the image Scheherazade's stories along had given him alone.

“Coming, coming. You know, I think I’ll be glad when you’re gone.”

“What’s that supposed to mean!?”

Yunan laughed. “You’re not very cute, you know? Maybe legs _will_ suit you better.” He took a package from the corner of his enclave. “It might take a long time for us to find land. Scheherazade is pretty cautious when it comes to everyone’s safety, so we’re somewhere pretty remote right now. Are you sure you're ready?”

"Of course I am."

Judar bolted upwards past Yunan. He'd be the one setting the pace. Yunan would be too slow.

The farther up they swam upwards, the more weight was lifted from Judar’s body. Once he’d left the barrier in their territory chasing a squid and had almost been crushed by the pressure, so he knew that the rukh was always working to lighten the load according to his subconscious directions. Up above the barrier, that wasn’t necessary. It was easier to swim but felt a little odd. Water flowed through his gills more readily than ever as the current picked up, making him cough it back out more than once.

“We should rest for awhile,” Yunan would say occasionally. “Our bodies need time to adjust to the difference in pressure.”

“Can’t we just use strength magic?”

“We could, but it would be a waste of your magoi. You have to learn not to depend on magic so much if you’re going to the surface. Humans can’t use it, you know. And they tend to try to kill things that they don’t understand. Pity, really, as I wouldn’t mind visiting the surface again if I could use magic up there.”

Aside from a few adjustment breaks, the trip was silent until they saw the first rays of the sun, still thousands of miles below the surface. Judar squinted as his eyes picked up colors from every angle. It was overwhelming, but he wanted to see it all at once. He forced his eyes wide open until they adjusted to the colors.

“It looks like it’s daytime up there,” Yunan said. “We’re still just in the twilight layer, but I’ll warn you now. Try not to look at the sun or you might go blind like Scheherazade did. Let your eyes adjust to the surface’s light for a few days before you try to stare at the sky when the sun is out. It may even be wise for us to slow down travel during the day.”

It took a long time for Judar’s eyes to adjust to the sense of seeing. Everything was blurry at first from a lifetime of not focusing. But slowly, as they swam to lighter and lighter waters, his eyes began to see bubbles and scales.

The fish of the light were different from the deep sea’s fish. They had smooth scales and swam quickly, without creating any light of their own - why would they when the sun made light for them?

He first saw the shallow sea at night. Many more animals lived in the shallow sea than in the deep sea. At first, the sheer number was overwhelming - he’d never seen so many fish before in his life. He couldn't even begin to catch them all.

“That’s how the human world is, too,” Yunan said. “But with humans instead of fish. They’re everywhere just like this. So you can’t let your guard down. Unless you were planning on being skinned for a hair pin, that is. Humans love our scales only once they've killed us.”

“I can be careful!” Judar huffed. It was annoying how older sirens didn’t seem to think younger ones were capable of thought. He’d be glad to be gone.

It didn’t take long for the night to change to day again. 

Judar looked away from the intolerable brightness of the sun's rays and focused on his own body. He’d never seen his jewelry in such light before. It was a gold more radiant than Scheherazade’s and Titus’s hair that he’d seen occasionally, lit by their bright rukh, and he had trouble looking away when light reflected off of his bracelets. His choker must have looked the same. He wondered briefly if his parents whom he inherited them from had known how the gold sparkled in the sun.

Behind him his hair, black as the bottom of the sea, flowed easily in the water. Yunan’s hair was thin in comparison and tied in a braid for ease of travelling. All the sirens braided their hair when they felt like it, and let it lay loosely across their backs when they felt like it. It was easier to hunt with it in a braid and softer to sit on when it wasn’t. Judar almost always kept his in a braid since he loved to hunt, but he had been pouring his magoi into his jewelry so intently that he hadn’t hunted or braided it in the past few days. He just didn’t have the energy.

In time, they reached the surface. Judar popped his head out of the water, took a breath, and coughed the air back out.

“Keep your gills underwater,” Yunan said. Once Judar’s coughing fit finished, Yunan continued talking softly. “For some reason, our bodies have both gills and lungs. But our lungs aren’t strong enough to live on land for long. So they need to be strengthened with magic. It’s a lot simpler than creating legs from scales, though - why don’t you try it now? Breathe slowly, through your face instead of your chest. It might be easier if you open up your mouth for it.”

Judar opened his mouth and took air in, resisting the urge to cough it up. He hated relying on Yunan’s instructions for everything, but it was much more efficient than if he tried to do everything alone. The air was thinner than water and being in the open air made him lightheaded. He struggled to make out Yunan’s instructions as he focused on breathing.

“Now move some of the magoi from your choker to your body, and center it in your lungs. They should be easy enough to find now that they're moving. Soon it should get easier to breathe.”

Judar did so and Yunan was right - it did get easier. Before long he was fully aware again, if a little achey. “Now what?”

“We find land. Follow me,” Yunan said as he led the way. He swam only directly below the water’s surface, occasionally gaining momentum to jump out of the water before falling back in gracefully. His green tail reflected the light from above and below the waves easily. Judar checked on the surface periodically as well, feeling disappointed every time he looked up just to see nothingness in all directions.

After hours of swimming Judar’s tail was tired and he was hungry. It had already been a long trip to the surface, and the additional swimming with no land in sight was disheartening. He didn’t say anything, though. He was sure he could just eat on land, wherever it was. It couldn’t be much longer.

Night fell but there was no time to stare at the stars. They were so far away that they were blurry, and much smaller than Judar had imagined. Purple splashes that couldn’t have been stars spilt across the sky in patterns like the blood of a kill spreading through the sea. The moon was much duller than the sun and easy for him to look at. But if he had time to look at the night sky he had time to swim, swim, swim.

“Are you okay?” Yunan eventually asked as Judar lagged behind. “That’s right, you never were very strong physically. I wonder if your body is just naturally weak or if it’s from one of those old injuries.”

“No way,” Judar said. “I’m not weak. It’s just swimming. No problem.”

“If you say so.”

The moon rose high into the air before beginning to dive towards the other edge of the sea. It wasn’t too far from the water when Judar heard Yunan call from far away.

“Hey! There’s a ship over here!”

Judar swam as fast as his tired tail would take him to where Yunan was watching. The ship was not how Judar thought it would look at all. It wasn’t rough like a rock. Instead it was smooth and had a unique shape. Something that looked like a giant fin caught the air currents and drove it in the direction the air wished it.

“We’re going to follow it,” Yunan said. “But stay close. If they see you, there’s no telling what would happen. We could get lucky or we could become someone’s prize. It looks like an important ship so there’s probably weaponry on board. I have the magic to protect us, but… I’d rather us just follow it quietly.”

“We aren’t going on it?”

Yunan laughed. “No, that would be asking for trouble. Humans can’t live on boats forever. It may be weeks, or even months, but it will reach land eventually.” Yunan ran a hand through his hair and looked to Judar. “A month is the rising and falling of the sun… thirty times over or so. It is a very long time to be in these shallow waters. I don’t like it up here much, so I hope it’s close to port.”

“Why don’t we just keep swimming if it’s going to take so long for the boat to get to land? We can probably find it faster.”

“Probably,” Yunan agreed. “But the world is full of land. Not all land is inhabited by humans, though. It’s a much safer bet to follow a boat to civilization than to just swim aimlessly.”

If human settlements were that uncommon, Judar had no choice but to listen. It was annoying but soon he’d be on land with no sirens to tell him what to do. 

Then he could live his own life of adventure and wonder and all those things humans had that didn’t exist in the sea.


	2. Chapter 2

Days passed but none were as long as that first day of swimming. Despite Yunan’s warnings, soon Judar had explored the edges of the ship. It wasn’t as smooth up close as it looked from afar. The first time he touched it, he was shocked at its stiff and unpleasant covering. Yunan called it wood and said it came from trees, which made forests larger and more magnificent than what kelp could do. Humans cut them down and made ships out of them to explore the surface of the sea. Judar wondered why no one at the bottom of the sea had ever tried to use kelp for such inventions.

The ship’s strange texture was impressive until he got a splinter. Then it was just unpleasant.

From the bottom of the ship, sometimes he could hear humans talking from the deck. He couldn’t understand what they were saying as it was a language different from their own. But he listened intently anyway, trying to make out any similarities and decode their words. It never worked.

“Even if you learned how to understand their language, you could never speak it,” Yunan told him. “Your voice is only meant to command rukh and talk to those of your own kind.”

“Aren’t we supposed to eat them? I bet it’d be easier if we could talk to them.”

Yunan smiled. “Do you think the only reason we look like them is so we can eat them?“

“Probably. Can you think of anything better?” Judar asked.

“Lots of things. There are plenty of fish in the sea, after all. Why should we have to eat humans to survive?”

“We don’t, obviously. I’ve never eaten one.”

“Me neither. We don't really need them at all, not so deep in the sea. Of course there are sirens who live in shallower waters too, but… I’m not sure that they eat humans anymore either.”

Judar thought about it for a moment. Another reason that sirens and humans shared the same face. Yunan didn’t seem to be expecting Judar to come up with the answer himself.

One sailor shouted something and the rest burst into laughter. “Do you understand the human language?” Judar asked.

“I do. But I’m a bit rusty - it’s been so long, after all.”

“When were you last up there?”

“Oh, my. You don’t remember?” Yunan asked.

Judar hated the taunting tone he took when answering questions. “Just tell me.”

“I was on land for much of your childhood,” Yunan said.

“Didn’t think you had it in you to leave your home for that long.”

“…Maybe not anymore. I’ve become disillusioned. But as Scheherazade would say, that’s a story for another time.”

Another sailor was yelling now. They had all sorts of energy despite the fact that they were stuck on their boat. Large as it was in comparison to Judar, he was sure it’d be suffocating spending so much time in it instead of in the open sea itself. He’d know. He’d done the same in their colony for twenty years, after all.

“It seems like in the short time it’s been, humans have already invented new words,” Yunan said. “Impressive, isn’t it?”

To think that humans changed so fast - the words sirens spoke never changed. Judar’s curiosity grew. He wanted to understand what they were saying too.

Yunan looked at the ship. Unlike Sceherazade’s dreamy tone, the one he took when speaking of the humans was distant at best. “Yes… new words. And yet they must mean the same as the words they’ve replaced. If you plan on staying on land with them for a long time, you’ll need to be able to speak with them.”

“We really can’t speak with them without magic?”

“No,” Yunan said. “You may learn to understand their language, but there's little point if you can't speak. You’ll get lonely for sure if you can’t talk to them.” A second later he thought better. “Or rather, you always have so much to say. I think you’d find it boring if you could never express anything up there. Besides, it would be hard to fit in with the humans without being able to speak with them.”

Judar thought about it only for a moment. “Alright, I’ll do it. Show me how to use their… voice, or whatever.” He could always just store more magoi if he ran out.

“Vocal chords, actually. But close enough.” Yunan said the spell with an exaggerated pitch that would be easy for Judar to mimic, tapped his own neck and hummed, then tapped each place he felt vibrating under his skin and cast additional spells that tinted his rukh purple. “Alright,” he said after catching his breath again. Yunan said a few words, odd and guttural, that Judar immediately recognized as the language the sailors were speaking earlier.

Judar frowned. If it was that easy it couldn't possibly be a burden on his magoi. Struck with a competitive urge to do it better, Judar tried the same spell, urging his rukh to perform the same actions, but an attempt to vocalize the words left him coughing.

“Looks like you casted it wrong,” Yunan said. “Why did you try using strength magic instead of life?”

“It’s way easier,” he said. “And more useful."

“I wouldn’t be so sure. Here, try again.”

Yunan showed him the spell several times but it was difficult to understand how he was changing his voice. Judar didn’t even know what vocal chords were, and trying to reach and alter them with magic was difficult.

In the end he had to practice for several days before casting it exactly right. Even then when he tried to speak the human language, it came out mostly as spit. Luckily after it was initially cast with life magic, strength magic could hold it in place well enough.

As much as Judar hated to admit it, his skill set wasn’t very even. He was very good at what he was good at and very bad at what he was bad at. Life magic just so happened to fall into the ‘very bad at’ category.

“You still have to learn what they’re saying and how to say it,” Yunan said. “But at least now it’s possible.”

From then on when Judar went to listen in on the humans he repeated their words back to himself. It took a few weeks for him to be confidant with the way his mouth curled around the words, but the magic worked. A vocal range that he had never known existed could now be created from his mouth.

If only magic could teach him what they were saying, too. He braided and unbraided his hair as he listened to the humans talk to each other from the shadow of the boat. It was fun in a way that both filled him with anticipation and made him feel trapped by the water, the same as listening to Scheherazade’s stories had been.

He grew familiar with the voices of the humans, though he couldn’t see their faces from where he swam. When humans were irritated, their voices took an irritated tone. When they were happy they laughed. But if he closed his eyes and tried to imagine them, he could only imagine sirens. After all, he still wasn’t sure what their legs were supposed to look like.

The human that the siren of fairy tales had fallen in love with had fallen into the sea from what must have been a boat just like the one they were following. He was saved and captivated by a siren, though he’d been in no state to comprehend her tail. Because if he had, he wouldn’t have fallen in love. He would have screamed.

So Judar would have to keep the fact that he was a siren secret on land. He thought of it like a secret mission - like chasing a whale from the shadows. The humans would entertain him without ever knowing that they were entertainers, just as the sailors were doing.

Finally, after a month and a half of trailing the ship Yunan spotted land ahead. They swam quickly and reached the coast a day before the ship would have. Yunan was disappointed to find that their first sight of land turned out to be a rocky shore.

“This won’t work,” Yunan said. “Even if I showed you how to walk you’d just slip and fall back in if you tried climbing up here. You might even crack your head. The port should be to the north, so we’re going along the south edge to avoid it. Come on, we need to find sand.”

Judar swam ahead, looking for sand. He’d felt it before but hadn’t seen it often - the water tended towards deepness in their side of the sea, filled with rocks and reefs. He admired the land as he swam around it in his search. Just like Yunan said, the land seemed to stretch endlessly in the same way he’d come to expect the sea to. He didn’t see any humans no matter how close he swam or how hard he squinted.

But if the rocks were dangerous enough for a siren to not want to climb on, that explained why there were no humans. Without rukh to warn them or a borg to protect them, humans were fragile. Fragile and yet always fighting. Scheherazade never pointed it out, but it’d always struck Judar as strange.

Scheherazade had a barrier around their colony to disperse overly agitated rukh. That way it was impossible for anyone to fight without going outside and risking being crushed by the pressure. So everyone always did as they were told and never got in any serious fights, no matter how annoyed they got with each other.

The best they’d ever been able to do was punch each other’s borgs. It was good for stress relief, if anything. Maybe that was why humans got in so many fights. Maybe it still felt good to them even if they came out bloody.

He wondered if there were sharks on land that were attracted to the smell like there were in the sea. Sharks with legs. He couldn’t imagine it.

When Judar finally spotted sand he swam to it eagerly. Tiny schooling fish darted away in fear, back in the direction of the ocean. As full of life as the shallow sea was, Judar was the only creature who dared to approach the shore.

The water at the edge of the shore became so thin that he had to use his hands to prop himself up on it. Sitting on the shore with water only touching his tail, he stared at the vivid stretch of green ahead. He tried to bring himself closer to it, farther from the sea, but the dry sand caught his tail and hair and held him down.

Judar looked at his tail, shocked that Scheherazade’s warning had been true. Instead of seeing the reason it didn’t work on land, he saw its color clearly for the first time. In the sea it had been the color of everything around it, washed out by the water and sky. Now, against the white sand, his tail was just as brilliant as Yunan’s.

Yunan swam up soon after. He set the package he’d carried on his back for weeks (and used as an excuse to get Judar to do all the dirty work) down on the dry sand. He lay down, tired, not caring when the dry sand stuck to his wet arms and hair. “It took forever to find it,” Yunan complained. “I never wanted to see land again, and here I am. Scheherazade owes me for this…” 

“Scheherazade?”

“I’d be expelled from my home for sure if she found out I sent you off with no instruction.” He sighed. “I don’t want to have to move outside of the colony. It’s so much work.”

“I could have done without you bothering me the whole time,” Judar said. “But you know what to do from here, right? I heard the magic for legs was pretty complicated.”

“Yeah, it is. There’s no way you could have figured it out on your own since you don’t know a lot about humans… It took years before I perfected the formula.”

“Get on with it.”

Yunan unwrapped the package. “I brought this here since it would be too much trouble to do it from scratch,” he explained as he held up a smooth cylindrical piece of wood. “I also brought clothes. You need to wear them or else the humans will think you’re a real pervert.”

“The hell is that?”

“Something that weird humans are. You’ll find out sooner or later, with your luck.” 

Yunan took the staff, made to fit his grip perfectly, and tapped it to the sand experimentally. Bright rukh fluttered to the indention it made in the sand. “Oh, good. I was worried it wouldn’t work anymore after all this time.”

“Where did you even get this?” Judar asked as he poked the wood staff. It was much smoother than the boat. He didn’t think he’d get a splinter from it.

“A human made it.”

It only took Judar a second to process his words. A human made the staff Yunan used to give himself legs. So humans didn’t always kill known sirens on sight. He figured it was one of Scheherazade’s stories meant to keep them from harm. Should have known.

“Alright.” Yunan cleared his throat before reciting the spell’s name. It sounded like more life magic. Rukh fluttered from the water and trees to help the spell run its course. His tail split in the middle, and the skin of his waist seemed to drip down across his scales until the reflective green was hidden, leaving only little pink lines like scars at their borders. The weirdest part of it all was his tailfins folding into an inexplicable shape, something that must have been feet.

Yunan stood on his feet using his staff as a cane, shaky and slimy and tinted green as his fins were. Rukh was still swarming and pecking at his skin to change it.

“This is all that you wanted, right?” Yunan asked. “You won’t be able to live closely with humans like this, though. Because this is still the body of a siren. Just a siren with legs.”

“Isn’t that all a human is?”

“No. They can’t use magic. And they have bodies that respond to each other’s touch. Our bodies only respond to water pressure.” Yunan moved the staff through the air once more, calling the rukh to add some finishing touches.

“My body now is only an imitation of a human’s. Just like you would never mistake a shark for a siren, humans would never mistake this body for human. I could make it the same, but… this will be fine for you, I think.”

Yunan smiled at the crisp outlines of his toes, pleased with the spell’s exceptional detail. “Our internal organs are very different from a human’s. If you want them to be the same by a spell like this, you must pour a year of magoi into it daily. And it isn’t very useful if you’re able to keep your distance… if you aren’t suspected of being a siren and if you don’t fall in love.”

Judar scoffed. “Sounds like a waste of magoi only an idiot would need. The basics should be enough.”

“Oh, don’t be like that. You’re young. In a few years I’m sure you’ll come swimming back asking for me to show it to you.”

“The hell is that supposed to mean? Give it here,” he said as he grabbed for the staff. He repeated Yunan’s spell to the best of his memory, until his water-colored tail had changed into skin. Unfortunately, it failed to split.

“Wow, that used to happen to me all the time!”

Judar shook his fins in the shallow water. They didn’t change to feet.

“You have to focus on splitting it first,” Yunan said. “It might seem counterintuitive since you can’t swim or walk like that, but it really works best. Get rid of the spell and try again.”

It only took a few tries for Judar to get it right. All that practicing life magic he'd done while working on forming human vocal chords proved useful.

Using the staff as support, he stood - for a few seconds, that is. Soon he lost his balance and fell over again.

Yunan laughed. “Your hair is probably weighing you down. Maybe you should cut it.”

“No way! There’s no way in hell!!”

“Well, good luck making it to the humans then. You need to put these clothes on. Don’t take them off in the presence of a human… you’ll need to bathe alone. I’d explain bathing, but I always took every chance I could to jump in the water and take a long bath so I don’t think you’ll have any problems.”

Judar took a step, then another step using the staff as a cane towards Yunan’s package. He sat down to take out its contents. Apparently, they were called clothes. They were as wet as his hair and, once he spread them out to look at, just as sandy.

“One goes over your head, and two go over your legs. Put the small one on first. I think that’s all you needed to know… oh, and don’t take food if you see it. Only take it someone offers it to you.”

“Huh? Why?”

“That’s called stealing. I learned the hard way. Humans have to trade for food because they don’t live with fish in the sea. If you’re lucky you’ll find someone to take you in or something. If they don’t mind your bad manners.”

“Weren’t you going back to the ocean? Like, soon? Right now, even?”

Yunan smiled. He thought he could make it seem like he was the nicest guy ever just by smiling and brushing it off. What a joke. “Right! I can’t wait to be back in the dark. You really put me through a lot of trouble.”

Yunan dusted off his legs and sat down in the water. “To stop the magic you just have to tell the rukh you don’t need it anymore, okay? Come see me if you ever want to become like a real human. Our homing instincts are pretty strong, so it should be pretty easy for you to find our territory again.”

Yunan sat for a moment as if expecting something but when only the seagulls replied, he sighed and flopped back in the water, his legs melding together so naturally it was like they'd never existed.

“You’re such a rude guy. Not even a thank you. Whatever!” With that, Yunan swam off.

Judar was left alone on the shore to take in the feeling of holding his weight on solid ground.

The ground he had to practice walking on was only a small stretch of sand that evened out into tiny plants. In the distance he could see trees and even what might have been mountains. Judar’s stomach felt light as he considered the possibilities. From now on he could do anything he wanted with no one to hold him down. Judar figured he would go through the plants first until he found something interesting.

He tugged at the pants Yunan gave him as he walked. The shirt was okay, but the pants were insufferable. He couldn’t stand the feeling of it rubbing against his tail - no, his legs, every time he took a step. He tried bunching the fabric up on his thighs to keep it from rubbing on his calves, but it was just as annoying that way. The cool evening air was uncomfortable on his bare legs, so Judar unraveled the pants soon after and let them fall back to how they were.

In the grass he found a small path. In an area with mostly rocky beaches, maybe humans liked to walk out to the sand every now and then to view the ocean safely. Maybe the sea was as interesting and foreign to them as the land was to sirens. He followed the path with the idea that humans would be at the end.

Though the clouds remained dark throughout the evening, it didn’t rain. Judar’s legs and mind were exhausted by nightfall, so he veered off the path to rest on dirt for the night.

It was a strange feeling. The air was damp but warmer than the damp air above the sea. His clothes were itchy and small creatures kept landing on him. He thought they might be what Scheherazade had lovingly called insects, but he wasn’t sure. He didn’t think he could call them anything but a pain in the ass.

He was hungry but too tired to wonder about food. Soon he drifted off.

When Judar next woke, his muscles were sore and his hair was damp. How it could become damp outside of the water was a mystery to him. And worse than the uncomfortable dampness was the mixture of sand and dirt stuck to his hair and arms.

He ignored it to the best of his abilities and continued walking along the path. Within a few hours he reached water. Unable to resist the urge to be clean, he walked in without thinking to keep his clothes dry.

Judar’s gills worked instantly, taking in the water without him even thinking about it. But it was different from the ocean’s water. Instead of making him feel hydrated and clean, it made him feel worse. It even tasted different. But he was hungry and wouldn’t leave before eating.

Catching fish was infinitely harder with legs than with a tail. Judar’s stubbornness kept him from dispelling the magic to catch food, so he gave up on fish and forced a few mussels open. They tasted just as off as the lake felt on his skin. Maybe it was the taste of algae. Whatever it was, he hated it enough to drive him out of the water and continue walking.

By the time the sun began to set again, a light drizzle started.

Judar had never known rain until surfacing in the middle of the sea. When he had seen it for the first time, he was shocked. Water that fell from the sky that was too thin to swim in seemed too mystical to be true, but it was as real as ships and the sea itself. With his tail he had been able to just swim under the water and watch it fall when it got too cold.

Now, with nothing but legs to support himself, when the rain started Judar could only keep walking. It didn’t bother him at first - it was more like living inside a fairy tale than anything. When his clothes were drenched, his hair heavy, and his skin cold, it started to become a problem. It didn’t dry quickly like the water from the lake had. It couldn’t dry up because the air just kept getting wetter and wetter, and after many hours of it, even his body that was adjusted to the deep sea was getting cold without scales and a barrier to regulate the temperature and pressure.

In his tired state Judar didn’t notice immediately when the scenery changed. The trees thinned into strange chiseled structures. Maybe they were the houses of humans Scheherazade told him about, or maybe just another kind of animal’s den. He'd try entering one if he were certain that there was an entrance, but he didn’t feel like stopping to try to find one. He had to keep walking, for reasons that were becoming increasingly difficult to remember.

Eventually Judar could make out a larger building on the horizon. The structure Scheherazade always told her stories in was the largest in their territory, a ravine almost entirely covered by smooth rock that felt secure no matter how little energy one had. Humans probably had similar communal buildings. That was what it looked like, at least - it was far too large for just one human to live in. So there would be enough of them that his presence wouldn’t be suspicious.

He kept walking until he reached the building. There was a gate in front of it, closed and towering many feet above his head - he tried jumping over it, but was weighed down by the gravity of the surface and the weight of his wet clothes and hair.

He was overtaken by a shiver as he stared upwards. The wall was at least twice his height, and he could barely raise himself off the ground as he was.

It was hard to think over the shivering of his teeth. It was a lot to take in alone. 

Judar usually dealt with any problems that arose alone - that was how he’d always done it. He didn’t have family like Aladdin or Titus to tell him how to deal with things, so he’d always come up with his own solutions. But if his solutions were ineffective then he’d always been able to look to someone else and copy what they’d done. Being alone within his colony, still surrounded by sirens, and being alone for real were two very different things.

Yunan had come with him to make sure he didn’t die before making it to land, but now that he was there he was on his own and was finally starting to realize that he didn’t know anything. He didn’t know that clothes became thick and heavy when it rained and didn’t know that water could suck his body temperature so quickly. After all, he had lived in it his whole life. The cold, inescapable rain was an unexpected problem. 

Though Judar hadn’t considered death as something that would happen to him for a long, long time he was starting to realize the danger he was in. He needed to stop acting recklessly. He touched his choker, filled with all the magical energy he could fit into it for months. With all the magoi in his body devoted to keeping it in a humanoid shape along with his current exhausted state, he had to rely on his choker. He took enough magoi to allow a command to get through to the rukh.

“I need to get into this building!” He shouted to all the rukh that would listen. Rukh from the rain and greenery flooded to him and gathered at his feet. Judar jumped with the rest of his power. With the magic of the rukh it was child’s play to jump over a gate. He finally understood why Yunan had been so insistent that he store it outside of his body.

The inside of the gate was so brightly colored that for a second Judar was sure it was nothing more than a dream. Colors that he struggled to name filled his vision to a dizzying degree, weaving within each other from the face of the building. It was beautiful, but beauty was not what he needed needed now.

He kept walking until he reached an area where an arch protected him from the rain. All but collapsing onto the hard ground, he finally allowed himself to cough until his chest burned. He didn’t know why he was doing it, but once he started it didn’t stop for what felt like several minutes.

Judar focused on steadying his breathing. His aching legs would be fine just like his aching tail was always fine after a long hunt. The real problems were his breathing and the cold. And it _was_ cold. It got cold in the sea, sure, but his bones were never as cold as they were now.

His teeth had been chattering for the past hour. His clothes were no warmer even when he was out of the rain. The hard ground scraped his cheek when he coughed against it but he didn’t have the strength to sit up any longer.

The rain thinned and stopped and his breath was still coming out forced and unnatural. It never occurred to him that the rukh might know how to dry him, and he was quickly losing the mind to ask. His world went black though he was sure he hadn’t closed his eyes. For a moment before he lost consciousness he thought coming to land was all a dream and he was still in the dark sea, before even that dream faded away.


	3. Chapter 3

Judar blinked his tired and dry eyes open. He was somewhere he had never seen before. It was a large chamber lit only by sunlight caged in wood. He breathed slowly, unfocused eyes staring at the strangely dimmed light.

Though disoriented, only his own rukh and the far-reaching rukh of the sun chirped. No one else was in his immediate vicinity, and he was too tired to seriously check his surroundings. Wherever he was, it didn’t feel dangerous.

It was possible that Judar’s sense of danger was just dimmed from his aching body. But it was so much easier to focus on the strange smells and sensations around him than to worry about being killed.

‘Soft’ was an unnecessary world at the bottom of the sea. Nothing was soft and nothing was comfortable. And yet here Judar was feeling like he had been sleeping on air. At the other side of the room was what looked like a bed, large and comfortable. He wasn’t sleeping on a bed but on a smaller piece of furniture. There was a comfortably warm fabric wrapped around him, softer than clothes.

The room smelled so strongly that it was almost stuffy. But it was a nice smell. When he imagined land as a child, he had never thought of it as smelling so strongly. It didn’t take too long to notice the strange object that was pouring the fragrant smoke into the room. The pattern on it made no sense to Judar, but he found himself running his eyes over it and the smoke several times without much thought. His eyes saw but kept forgetting to comprehend.

He stayed like that for some time, too disoriented to think of moving. It may have been minutes, or maybe hours, but the door to the room opened before light left the room for the day. A human walked in and stood next to where Judar was lying.

Judar stared. The human stared back.

Much like Judar’s own, the human's hair was dark. His lips and nose and ears all looked similar to what he could feel on his own face and had seen on Yunan’s.

So it was true that human faces were just like their own. But there were differences too. The human’s skin had pink blotches on one side of his face down his neck, and his eyes were slightly different. He wondered if he’d need to use light magic to make blotches for himself, if it was some characteristic of humans that Yunan had forgotten to mention. Though he thought idly that he might be in danger for looking inhuman even after all his effort, he couldn’t feel it. He was too sore to be in danger. It could wait.

Finally, the human spoke. Judar recognized some words as words the sailors had spoken to each other. But he couldn’t understand what they meant. It was his first time seeing a human up close and he was too preoccupied with looking to think about what he might be saying. If he weren’t so sore surely he would have touched the human’s face to make sure it was real.

The human looked annoyed. He repeated his words slowly. Judar thought it might have been a question.

Still too groggy to think properly, Judar responded the first way he thought of. “I don’t know what you’re saying,” he grumbled.

The human was surprised to hear him speak. Judar didn’t think to wonder how he sounded to human ears. The fogginess he felt when he first woke up was coming back and suddenly all he wanted was for the human to leave him alone so could enjoy his soft couch a little longer.

“You speak… Torran?” The human asked.

“Let me sleep,” Judar responded. He was too tired to realize he had understood the human’s words.

The human shifted his weight on his feet in embarrassment. “S, sleep then.” His words weren’t put together quite right but Judar understood. He fell back asleep before the human got the chance to leave the room.

When Judar next woke the room was dark. He vaguely remembered having woken up before but couldn’t recall what happened.

Eventually he pieced the events in his memory together - he parted with Yunan, walked for what felt like forever, and it started raining. As it would happen rain was cold even on his thick skin when there was no way to retreat to the warmth of the sea. He made it into a larger building that had seemed from the outside to be a communal area. Where he was now didn’t fit that description, though. Either he’d simply forgotten finding a warm room or a human had moved him while he slept. Judar tried to get up, but his legs were shaky and he couldn’t figure out how to untangle himself from the blankets he was wrapped in.

Once he separated himself from the couch Judar realized that a layer of the clothes he had been given were gone. Or rather, they had been changed. He remembered Yunan’s warning - since his current body was only a cheap imitation of a human’s, it didn’t look the same with the clothes off. That was why he needed to wear them at all times.

But his clothes had been tampered with which meant that he had not walked in his sleep or forgotten moving himself. He would never have removed his clothes. Whoever took him into this room must have done it, Judar reasoned. That meant that he could be in danger.

He took a few shaky steps, then crouched to walk on his knees instead. His thighs were much less sore. He felt around the hard floor and furniture for an exit. His first instinct was always to feel before looking with his eyes and his tired mind didn’t think to process what he was seeing along with the feelings in his hands.

A wooden box, carved in the same ornate patterns that everything in the human world seemed to carry, looked promising. He felt around its edges and forced a metal latch he discovered open. 

Despite his expectations, it was just full of clothes. None of them were the same texture as the ones Yunan had left. They were all much softer, the same material as the ones he was wearing now. Judar realized his legs weren’t itchy at all now. It was a lot easier to move in what he had on now, too.

He heard footsteps but didn’t have the time to react before the door opened. He focused his eyes on the human who entered. Holding a tray that emitted a nice smell, the human appeared to be about the same size as Judar. He was wearing clothes with striking similarity to those in the wooden chest. It didn’t take him long to figure he was in this human’s private quarters.

“What are you doing?” The human asked. He set down the tray on a slab of wood next to the bed and walked over to Judar to shut the lid of the chest.

“Wait,” Judar said in his native tongue. “Your words…”

“Brought you food,” the human said. He motioned to the tray he brought in. Judar walked over. Yunan said to accept food humans offered him, but the whole thing felt overly convenient. A human who saved him from the rain, spoke his language, and brought him food? Yeah, right.

“Why?” Judar asked.

The human didn’t answer. When Judar looked back at him, he seemed to be struggling to find the words to convey what he wanted to say. He said something in the human language, but Judar still couldn’t understand the meaning.

Judar sighed. He didn’t think it would be so frustrating not being able to communicate with someone. As Aladdin always put it, Judar never really had a way with words. But it was jarring just how little he could communicate without a shared language.

If the human had wanted him dead, he would be dead already. And he was hungry. He didn’t know how far it was to another body of water to fish mussels out of. He might starve if he didn’t eat soon. Judar decided that it was fine to eat by that reasoning. The human seemed physically stronger than himself anyway. More muscular.

Sure, Judar had magic. But what did that matter? If he used it and someone saw then there would be a lot more humans than just this one to worry about, according to Scheherazade.

Judar looked at the tray. Three bowls were present - one with brown water, another with a watery food inside, and another packed with many different things. It had a great mix of colors and shapes inside - was it really all food? He thought of grabbing a piece with his fingers but the hot steam coming off the dish told him it was a bad idea. It was only then that he noticed the wooden utensils.

He heard about them from Scheherazade. Humans preferred to eat with utensils because they thought it made it easier. All he had to do was, um… what was it again? Stab the food with it?

That sounded about right. He pierced the wooden spear through a chunk of human food and was pleased to see how well it stuck.

The human stood across from him as he ate. taking in his every move. It was clear that he didn’t have the human’s trust - he was kept within his line of sight at all times. He wondered if he'd been locked in when the human wasn’t in the room earlier. If he had been, then at the very least there was nothing important in this room. Maybe humans kept all of their personal effects elsewhere. Or maybe this one just didn’t have any, or at least none that were important enough to worry about a stranger destroying.

Of course, it was always possible that without magic humans weren’t capable of locking anything. He’d have to test that theory once the human left again.

Judar took a tentative sip of the brown water the human brought, surprised that it was warm. It didn’t taste like lake or sea water, but like a mixture of food and water. It had a strong taste and smell that he couldn’t identify. It definitely wasn’t something that could be found in the ocean. He swished it around in its silver cup and set it down.

He didn’t think he liked it.

Judar finished eating the food that was so different than anything he’d eaten before, then set the tray aside with his near full cup.

By then, the human had found the words to ask questions. “Why were you outside?”

“It was raining.”

The human rolled his eyes. Judar wasn’t sure what to make of that - in the sea, no one made such gestures. Even if they did no one would see it. So he didn’t get that the human didn’t buy it until his next question. “How did you make it past the… the wall?”

His memory was hazy, but he did seem to remember a wall several times his own height. Judar was fairly certain that he’d used the rukh to jump over it. He touched his neck lightly. Though the choker still had months worth of his own magoi within, it had a fair amount less than yesterday. He wasn’t sure what he would do if it ran out. Go to the shallow sea for a while as it recharged, probably.

He had no desire to go back to the deep sea. Sirens said everyone always returned, and now that he’d made it so far, his stubbornness and curiosity urged him to carve out a life away from what he’d known until now.

“I don’t remember,” Judar finally answered. It was the safest way he could think of to respond. If he came up with something better later it’d be easy to change his answer.

The human sighed. “Where are you from?”

That question wasn’t so easy. He didn’t know enough about the land to make something up with. “Far away.”

The human looked coldly at him. Judar grinned in return. Everyone trusted everyone else in the sea. He’d heard that humans were distrusting and suspicious and from what he could see it was true. It was nothing like talking without another siren. It was refreshing in its novelty. “I’m Judar,” he told the human.

“You’re in the Kou Empire,” the human said.

“Okay.”

“The imperial palace of the Kou Empire.”

“Okay.”

“Why are you here?”

“It was raining.”

The human put his hand on his own face and grumbled something in the human language. Judar figured it was some kind of insult, but without knowing exactly what it was it was hard to respond. The human took his blank expression as one that wasn’t dangerous, at the very least.

He said something again in the human language. Not a mumbled question, but something that sounded like an accusation. Judar’s clear lack of understanding must have shone through, so the human shook the suspicious expression off his face.

“I will let you stay,” the human said. “You don’t speak my language, but the Torran language. And there are no Torran people here. I will learn more of this language and ask again. So answer me next time.”

Judar flopped down on the bed. It really was as comfy as it looked. “Okay.”

The human, annoyed, pointed to the couch. Judar laughed. The last time he had met someone new before now was when Aladdin was born. The time before that was when Titus was born. Now that the human had made it clear that Judar wasn’t in any danger, he was suddenly giddy about meeting someone new and being somewhere new. He wanted to learn the human language as soon as possible so he could do everything he wanted to do.

Easier said than done, to say the least. As soon as the human decided he was healthy enough to leave the room, Judar was given a change of clothes. Though they were less comfortable than the white robe he’d been wearing earlier, they were still better than what Yunan gave him. He was allowed in a smaller room attached to the human’s bedroom, separated by a screen, to change.

They didn’t look like the kind of clothes that the human would wear. He seemed to prefer white while the clothes he gave Judar were brown. With several changes of clothes, it was clear that this was what he was meant to be wearing for the foreseeable future.

Once he was changed, Judar was instructed by the human to come to the library with him. 

“Since you’re here, you need to learn my language,” the human told him. Excited at the chance, Judar followed.

It was the first time that Judar had left the complex of rooms that belonged to the human. The fresh air felt good on his face, but the bright lights and colors of outdoors made him squint.

Red pillars and red ceilings. White and green tiles. The ground was hot on his feet in a way that dirt wasn’t. Though he wanted to look at the strange patterns above his head the human didn’t give him time to admire the scenery. He walked briskly to their destination, only pausing to make sure that Judar was following.

Their destination was across a courtyard with strange drooping trees and was far taller than the human’s personal quarters. A ‘library’ turned out to be a room filled with huge wooden shelves and scrolls with small symbols written on them piled out of reach. Though there was no bed, it was miraculously easy to fall asleep in.

They passed through several rooms, all dark, filled with scrolls, and dusty, before the human stopped at one that really looked no different than the previous rooms. Judar couldn’t place what was special about it if anything was at all.

In a corner of the room that looked worn and well used, the human took scrolls by the armful. “Carry these,” he told Judar.

Judar opened the first scroll he was handed to look at its contents, which made carrying the rest of the scrolls a little difficult. “Carry them yourself,” he complained.

The human looked surprised to hear his complaint. He sized Judar up and his surprised look quickly changed into a smug expression. “You act pretty tough for someone made out of twigs.”

Judar sputtered. While it might have been true that the human was a little stronger than he’d originally thought… well, a lot stronger, really, but how should he know? Maybe all humans were strong. Didn’t mean Judar was weak or anything.

Really, if he could use magic he could just have the air current - wind, he reminded himself - carry the scrolls back to the human’s quarters. See if the human thought it was funny how weak he was then. But the way the human talked to him was fun in a strange way. Every time he left Judar alone, he always looked forward to the next time he would be back. It was probably the only reason that he hadn’t left the palace for somewhere else - well, that and the fact that the human was locking him in. Besides, he’d promised to teach Judar the human language.

The human gave in, re-wrapped the scroll Judar had undone, and carried half of them while Judar carried the other half. Back in the human’s room, he opened a scroll and pointed to the text within.

“This is a scroll on learning the Torran language. It should work for learning the modern language, too, if used in reverse.”

Judar stared at the symbols. They had no symbols in the sea. Why would they when it was too dark to see?

“…Don’t tell me you can’t read.”

Judar shrugged. Shrugging was what the human did when he didn’t know the answer to something. Or when he didn’t feel like answering. Judar wasn’t really sure which it was yet.

The human sighed. “I wish I could just have my language tutor teach you, but… if word got out Kouen would take you hostage.”

“Who’s Kouen?”

“It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you must learn the modern language to a satisfactory extent as soon as possible.”

The human had gotten pretty good at the siren language in the past week. Apparently it was with the help of scrolls. Judar looked at the strange markings again. How hard could this ‘reading’ thing be?

Very, very hard, it turned out. He regretted ever thinking it would be easy. The human was a harsh teacher - they were constantly taking detours so he could try to force Judar’s accent out of his speech, urging him to be more careful in enunciating. If Judar messed up writing, the human would say the best way to learn was to write what he messed up one hundred times. His hands were tired and it was boring.

The human thought fairly similarly to himself. His lessons focused on self sufficiency and teaching Judar enough to get information out of him about why he was in Kou.

It didn’t seem to be any extra effort to keep him fed - the palace was large and full of food, much like the ocean. He was given water, too, though it tasted like lake water and drinking it made him feel worse than ignoring it. He learned after a few days of irritated searching that the taste it was missing was called ‘salt.’ The human didn’t put it in his water, but he did start putting it in his food once Judar complained. He felt much better almost instantly.

Compared to how foggy his head was when he first washed up in the palace, it was now clear. Clearer than it had ever been. He was learning and experiencing so many new things that time even felt at times like it passed more slowly just so that he could take it all in.

He wasn’t treated exceedingly well but he wasn’t treated poorly either. Judar knew it was dangerous to leave without knowing the human language, so he allowed himself to be satisfied with his current situation.

And he was learning. As he wrote both his own language and the human language side by side, words started to fall into place in his mind. Soon he could construct basic sentences.

Unfortunately, that meant the human decided it would be a good time to stop responding to him in Torran. He really was a brat. But it made things interesting. It took Judar ten tries to figure out “I’m hungry,” was the phrase he was looking for when his stomach was pained and empty but when he finally got it right, the human smiled softly. Judar’s face heated up. He had never seen someone’s sincerely happy smile before. His breath caught in his throat and he had to look down in embarrassment. Would the human understand his expression? He hoped not.

It was only then that Judar recalled that humans had names as well. Though this was the only human he acquainted with, he knew there were others in the hall. And he knew there were the humans Hakuei and Kouen and the Emperor and all kinds of others who lived in the palace as well. Or at least lived there sometimes. He gathered that they were often elsewhere.

But it was strange that he didn’t know this human’s name.

While the human was away making food, Judar flipped through the scrolls looking for what he wanted to say. He was right, the only way for Judar to be self sufficient was to learn to read. Otherwise he would be stuck depending on others to communicate. That was no way to live.

After a few minutes of searching, Judar found the words he was looking for. He repeated them to himself a few times. He could’ve just asked in Torran, but he was pretty sure he’d never asked someone’s name in his life. And besides, the human wasn’t responding to Torran anymore. So he had to do this the hard way.

Judar asked as soon as the human opened the door with a tray of food. “What’s your name?”

The human’s eyes widened for a second - was he surprised? - before he resumed a neutral expression. “Hakuryuu,” he responded. “Why?”

“Hakuryuu,” Judar repeated. “I wanted to know.” He would have explained how it was annoying to not have a name to think of him with, but it was too much work to think of how to do so in the human language. So he didn’t clarify.

As he began skewering human food with his wooden utensils, Hakuryuu took them from his hands. “You’re using them wrong,” he said.

“Huh? I am?”

“…I thought you were doing it on purpose before, but you really don’t know how to use them, do you?”

Come to think of it, Hakuryuu did use them differently. It just never occurred to Judar to try using them the same way. To be honest, it looked like a lot of work. And he was beginning to understand Hakuryuu enough to know exactly where this was going.

Hakuryuu replaced one of the skewers to Judar’s hand. “Hold it like you hold a brush when you’re writing.”

Rather than focusing on what Hakuryuu was telling him, Judar found himself focusing on how close he was. He was pretty sure no one’d ever been that close to him in his life, and his body was reacting accordingly. His pulse quickened in the same way it would if he were in danger. Hakuryuu didn’t seem to notice, focused as he was on correcting Judar’s manner of eating.

“Then you put the second one here,” he said, placing it below the first. “And move them like this.” He moved Judar’s fingers and the sticks clicked together.

“Um… right. I pretty much get it,” Judar lied. “But what’s the point?”

“The point? Well…” Hakuryuu moved back away. “It’s obvious that you’re a foreigner if you can’t eat with them. You’re lucky to not look it, so it’s best if you can be convincing in other ways as well.”

“Isn’t it better if everyone just assumes I’m not from around here? It’s easier to get around that way, right?”

“No, I already told you. It’s important to appear in every way to not be Torran.” Hakuryuu said. “Though I guess it doesn’t particularly matter if you come across as a plainsman or an eastern islander, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Yeah. Isn’t that for the best? Then I don’t have to learn how to use these.” Judar held up the sticks. “What are they, anyway?”

“Chopsticks. You need to know how to use them, you’re in Kou. Don’t try to worm your way out of it. How did you even get this far into the country without knowing how they’re used?”

“By boat,” Judar said. It wasn’t a complete lie and it was easy to follow up on if Hakuryuu asked. But he didn’t - instead his eyes lit up in understanding.

“A stowaway… that makes sense.”

The next day, lessons continued as usual. It was just as much of a routine as the one Judar followed in the ocean, but he hadn’t gotten tired of it yet. He still looked forward to it throughout the day.

Normally lessons would start the second Hakuryuu returned from whatever it was he did during the day, but it seemed that he had something else in mind. “I had someone start a bath,” he said. “It should be about ready by now.”

Baths. That was one he’d heard of. Yunan mentioned them before leaving back for the sea. Apparently it had something to do with water.

Hakuryuu led him out of his room in the opposite direction from the library. Their destination was only a single hall down this time.

The room was warm and filled with steam but didn’t smell of incense - the smell that Judar had come to identify as belonging to most smoke and steam that he saw. Instead it smelled like nothing. Its source was a small pond.

“There are outdoor baths as well, but I’d rather you use this one for now.”

Along the stone edges of the pool were various jars. Judar picked one up and opened it curiously. It had a strong and unfamiliar scent.

“That’s rose oil. The one next to it is jasmine, and the next to that is ginseng.”

He was impressed that Hakuryuu knew all the scents just by looking at the containers. “Do you use this bath too?”

“Yes,” Hakuryuu said. He didn’t offer an explanation. Maybe the outdoor baths weren’t as nice or something.

Judar looked from the bath to Hakuryuu. He was pretty sure what he was supposed to do, but… Hakuryuu couldn’t see his body. Absolutely not.

After a few seconds Hakuryuu seemed to understand. “You expect me to just leave you here?”

“Yeah.”

“If you try to leave without me you’ll get lost.”

“Will not. Your room’s not that hard to find. Just one hall down, right?”

Hakuryuu didn’t look convinced that Judar could find it again, or that he wouldn’t take the opportunity to go exploring. He really wasn’t very trusting.

Despite his obvious discomfort at the idea Hakuryuu eventually agreed to it. “Try to be done in half an hour,” he said and left.

Judar waited a minute to make sure that Hakuryuu wouldn’t come back before removing his clothes and sitting at the edge of the bath. He gingerly touched his feet to the water to test the temperature, then rested his calves inside and sighed contentedly.

The hot water felt good. Though the soreness from walking to Rakushou had already left a few days ago, he could imagine that the water would have dispersed it just as well.

He smelled each oil again before deciding he liked the rose oil. It had a strong sweet scent that was unlike any food or tea he’d tried so far. He poured a bit on his thighs and rubbed it in.

Now that he was looking closely, it wasn’t difficult to see a thin white grid across his legs. Rubbing at them revealed a harder surface than the rest of his skin. Judar sighed.

So that was what Yunan meant. His legs only just had enough skin to hide his scales. If a human only glanced at them from afar, he doubted that they could see the outline of scales. But if, for example, Hakuryuu had stayed to make sure that he didn’t escape instead of taking a bath…

When his legs adjusted to the water temperature, Judar slid the rest of his body in with a sigh. He had to consciously keep his gills from working. It would probably be painful breathing in such hot water.

It didn’t take long for Judar to undo his braid and completely relax. He put more oil on his shoulders and stomach and realized how dry his skin had gotten by being out of water. Even his hair felt dry and gross. As he finger-combed it through the oily water, some of its natural softness returned.

Hakuryuu knocked on the door asking if he was done all too soon. “It’s been half an hour already.”

“I’m not done yet,” Judar complained. “It feels good.”

“…Is it your first time using hot water?” Hakuryuu asked.

“Yeah,” Judar replied. “Let me use it a little longer.”

Since Hakuryuu asked, it must’ve been normal to use cold water too. Or rather, if he looked at it from a different angle, how did the water get hot in the first place? It sounded like Hakuryuu asked someone else to heat it up. Maybe humans living alone didn’t have the means to heat up water to bathe in.

It was pretty easy to rationalize. Even if that weren’t the case, Judar could always just say that they didn’t bother heating it up where he was from or something.

“Fine. It’ll start getting cold soon anyway.”

Hakuryuu left without opening the door. Judar smiled. So even someone as stubborn as Hakuryuu could be reasoned with.

He used his extra time to finish washing his hair. It didn't take too long to find the towels and figure out how to use them. Unless for some reason there was a ritualistic way to dry off, it was all very intuitive. He re-braided his hair and put on the change of clothes Hakuryuu had left - another set of the brown ones, made exactly the same as the last.

Hakuryuu was waiting outside. Judar smiled at him. Even though he’d been keeping guard the whole time like he couldn’t trust Judar to take a bath, he didn’t barge in or tell him to hurry up. Actually, it struck him as a little sweet that Hakuryuu let him enjoy his first hot bath in peace.

He was well aware that he was making excuses just because they were in the human world. But there was no harm in enjoying himself.

“What now?” Judar asked.

Hakuryuu met his eyes but looked away quickly. “More studying, if you’ll be awake enough. Come on.”

Judar didn’t understand what Hakuryuu meant by ‘if he’d be awake enough’ but returned to his room without commenting. Since Judar had been spending every night there on the makeshift bed of Hakuryuu’s couch, it was really his own room as well as Hakuryuu’s.

Hakuryuu showed him how to compare things more naturally in the human language and had him write sentences with more than seven words. When Judar didn’t understand the idea he was trying to convey, sometimes Hakuryuu would use a few Torran words to explain.

“Hey, shouldn’t _I_ be correcting _your_ accent?” Judar asked. “It’s pretty terrible.”

“I-is it? Anyway…” Hakuryuu bit his lip but didn’t let Judar distract him. He easily picked up where he left off in his explanation.

Was that a challenge? In Judar’s eyes, it absolutely was. The next time Hakuryuu said a word in Torran for explanation’s sake he corrected Hakuryuu’s accent again.

Hakuryuu conceded. He repeated it closer to how Judar said it, trying to get it right.

It was much closer. “Hey, you’re a pretty fast learner,” Judar said. He patted Hakuryuu’s head for a job well done.

“…Judar! Stop trying to distract me. It’s more important that you master the modern language,” Hakuryuu said and batted Judar’s hand away from his head. “After that you can correct my accent.” 

“But it’s so distracting.”

“Is not. You weren’t distracted by it yesterday.”

“Yeah, but I don’t feel like doing this today. Let’s do something else.”

“No. You have to get better at the modern language.”

“I’m bored of practicing. I want to explore the rest of the palace.”

Hakuryuu sighed. “I know that it’s boring staying here all day, but as you are now it’s dangerous to leave. You’re lucky that you came across me first.”

Judar didn’t really get it, but Hakuryuu seemed pretty convinced that it was for Judar’s own good. His rukh especially seemed worried about the idea that Judar leave on his own. He didn’t look like he was keeping Judar in his room all day out of malice, at the very least.

Eventually Judar got tired and they finished practicing early anyway.

He changed into the robes humans used to sleep in, carefully tying it as tight as possible so as to not expose his gills while he slept. For these Hakuryuu allowed him to use his own since they were nearly the same size, and they had a softness that was much easier to relax in compared to his day clothes.

Hakuryuu remained awake, working on something or other at his desk. Though the sun was setting, he continued working using the light from an oil lamp.

Judar had been impressed when he first saw the lamp that humans could harness fire’s light without magic. He had to tear his eyes away from it the first few times he’d seen Hakuryuu light the lamp.

Humans were actually a lot smarter than he’d initially assumed. Even though they didn’t live long, they built on the creations of humans before them to make oil lamps and clothes and boats.

Soft clothes and warm lamps. A dimly lit room and the light sound of Hakuryuu writing something. It was comfortable enough that Judar could fall asleep nearly instantly if he didn’t have anything on his mind, but he often did. So many things happened every day that he sometimes couldn’t sleep for his mind processing everything he learned, from words in the human language to the patterns on Hakuryuu’s teacups. Everything was new and captivating.

The dizzying stretch of time he spent in the deep sea became faint against the light of the human world. He could almost feel that it had never happened - that he was now living for the first time, in a world that he had a reason to exist in.

It was nothing more than a short-lived fantasy. Once he cleared his mind of thoughts, sleep came easy and deeply.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> things are picking up! in this fic, there are no metal vessels as the only magic belongs to sirens. i think it's very interesting how much dungeons had an effect on the decisions people make in canon because they're an easy path to power and source of hope. without them this is a canon divergent fic in various ways, some major and some minor.


	4. Chapter 4

Judar’s world consisted of Hakuryuu rooms, the indoor bath that he used, and the library for weeks. After the first few times, Hakuryuu trusted Judar to at least take a bath without guarding the door. But he still wasn’t allowed to go to the library on his own since it was past many halls and guards and officials.

If he just needed a few scrolls, Hakuryuu would get them by himself anyway. Anything to keep Judar locked up in his room without anything to do.

He asked a few times to go with Hakuryuu to get food but was denied on every occasion. As annoying as that was, he noticed that when Hakuryuu got food on those days it would taste sweeter than normal.

Human food had many more layers than the fish, squid, and whales that Judar had eaten nearly exclusively before surfacing. Hakuryuu taught him the names of flavors and what spice or herb they often came from along with what ailments they were able to treat. He claimed that food was a necessary part of their language and culture that he had to learn to fit in but Judar was pretty sure that Hakuryuu was just showing off.

Today’s food was bitter which was supposed to be good for the summer heat. Judar recognized the bitter vegetables he’d come to hate and didn’t even have to try it to know he’d hate it. He didn’t like bitter food and was sure to voice that on every occasion he got it.

“Just try it,” Hakuryuu said. “Do you really have to be so picky?”

“Maybe I wouldn’t complain so much if you brought better food.”

“I added honey to yours. It shouldn’t be too bitter this time.”

“…Really? Come to think of it, do you make this all yourself?” Judar asked, eyeing the number of side dishes. “It seems like a lot of work.”

“I prefer to eat my own cooking,” Hakuryuu said. His metal chopsticks clinked on the edge of his bowl as he ate. He explained before that he only had one pair so Judar should be content eating with the wooden kind. Judar didn’t really mind - it looked harder to eat with metal anyway. 

“Did you make all this when it was just you, too?”

“In the past my sister and her attendant ate with me as well. But they’re currently on an expedition into the plains.”

“You have a sister? What’s that like?”

Hakuryuu seemed shocked that Judar had to ask. “Do you just have brothers? Or are you an only child?”

“I don’t have any brothers or sisters,” Judar said. Aladdin and Titus were kids in his colony, sure, but none of them ever pretended to be related. They didn’t act like family any more than the rest of the colony did, which wasn’t much. At least for Judar it wasn’t. Titus and Aladdin at least had someone to look after them while Judar was usually just whoever was around’s responsibility when he was younger.

“That’s unusual around here,” Hakuryuu said. “I had three blood siblings, and have ten more by marriage.”

“There are fourteen of you!?”

“…Most of them aren’t anything like me,” Hakuryuu clarified, amused. “I don’t talk to most of them.”

“Really? I can’t imagine having that many people around and never talking to any of them.”

“If we were any other family we might be on better terms… but enough of that. Did you practice your economics vocabulary while I was gone like I told you to?”

Judar groaned. He wondered if all of Hakuryuu’s family was this strict. “Tell me more about them. I wanna hear about it.”

“I’m certain that it’s not the happy family you’re imagining. I really don’t talk to most of them much. You’d be better off going to the library for details.”

“Why the library? I thought only famous people got biographies,” Judar said. The scrolls Hakuryuu had him read to improve his vocabulary were boring, but useful for learning about human culture. Biographies were some of the most boring of what he had to read.

“Here I thought you’d at least have an idea about it. The Ren family has ruled Kou since before it was an empire.”

“Ruled… hey, wait, doesn’t that make you royalty? Like a prince?”

Hakuryuu sighed. “It looks like you’ll be needing history lessons before going into the palace, too. I don’t want you cluelessly saying something stupid to a guard’s face. And I know you would do just that.”

\---

It was easy to forget how different they were.

Though Hakuryuu was a human, he wasn’t any dumber than a siren. In fact, he was probably smarter than anyone else Judar knew. He was sentient, obviously, and had a personality. He even had moods just the same as a siren would. 

There were days that Hakuryuu’s mood was poor and he didn’t chat with Judar as much. Since he’d never tell Judar what was wrong, he was left confused and irritated at the difference in treatment. He soon learned that an early indication of his bad mood was whether the incense was lit or not - humans seemed to believe it helped improve both mental and physical health to burn it, but Judar was pretty sure they were just looking for an excuse since they liked the smell.

Judar didn’t like to sit in silence much when Hakuryuu was right there. The quiet felt too much like the bottom of the sea. He knew that Hakuryuu wouldn’t respond, but he ended up talking in Torran to ease the silence some. As good as he got at the modern language, it never seemed to come quite as naturally.

“Why are you teaching me all this, anyway?” he asked in Torran over another bitter meal. In his irritation with Hakuryuu it was the first thing that he could think of to complain about that might get an answer. “It’s not like you don’t know enough of this language to just ask me everything you need to know and dump me on the street. I know you said the scrolls only teach so much, but you understand what I’m saying now, right? So just ask.”

Hakuryuu was silent for a few minutes. When Judar was sure he wasn’t going to respond, he finally did. “I want to know exactly where you’re from,” Hakuryuu said. “No Torran people live around here, to my knowledge. So you must have come a long way.” He paused, setting his plate aside. He watched the vibrations on his tea’s surface fade out before speaking again.

“…There is a rumor that some Torran people know magic. Someone here has been trying to find a Torran settlement to test their power. Then you came along…”

“Someone,” Judar repeated.

“Yes. It isn’t a formal search by the emperor.”

“So you’re keeping any power I might have from that ‘someone.’ Wow, you must really not like him.”

Hakuryuu smiled. Less happy of a smile, more amused. It was one of Judar’s favorite expressions to see and a welcome change from the past hour’s tired frown. “It’s not just that. I want to know about magic, too. If it exists.”

“What would you do if it did?”

“Ask how to use it.”

“And if it were impossible for you?”

Hakuryuu frowned. “I guess there would have been no point in keeping you here then.”

“Nah, there was. ‘Cause I can use magic.”

“…Show me.”

Judar knew that he shouldn’t show Hakuryuu anything. He knew that at this point, his best bet would be leaving, finding somewhere far away, and continuing to live disguised as a human.

That was what he’d come to do. That was what he was _supposed_ to do.

But he’d rather show off than fade into the background in some human village. Besides, Hakuryuu’s story made sense even if he wasn’t really one of the Torran people. Hakuryuu didn’t have anyone else to tell even if he knew Judar could use magic. That was something he’d learned over his stay - that Hakuryuu was nearly as isolated as Judar was. Even his sister was too far to help him if he reacted poorly to magic. He could bet on it.

More than if it was a good idea or not, Judar wanted to use it. Call him naive, but he wanted to show off and be seen as someone with merits instead of someone who was made of twigs.

He touched his choker lightly, drawing magoi into his body. He couldn’t trust that he could cast magic properly without using it - his body’s natural flow of magoi was greatly hampered by splitting his tail into legs and he didn’t have a good feel for how much he could depend on the rukh of others on land yet.

Judar moved his finger, charged with magoi, in a straight line across the room. “Ramz Al-Salos!” Electricity cackled in the empty air. He scowled. It wasn’t as strong as he would have liked, but he didn’t want to waste too much magoi just to prove he could use magic.

Of course, when Hakuryuu spoke Judar instantly regretted not using his full power. “Is that all you can do?”

“You little brat! Of course I can do more than that.” Judar hopped off Hakuryuu’s bed and drew magoi from his choker again to give himself the strength to direct the rukh, this time enough to really do damage. He touched his hands to the edge of the window. It only took a little strength magic to pop the wooden frame out of its socket. The skies were filled with moisture - it was the rainy season and had rained every few days since he came to land. He walked back to the scrolls and grabbed the brush he had been using to practice writing. Not ideal, but it would work.

He pointed the brush out the window, using it as a small staff. He never needed a staff in the deep sea because everything swam so slowly. In the sunlit waters, Yunan had shown him that things as simple as brittlestar limbs could be used to direct his magic. He didn’t like relying on things Yunan gave him like the staff, so for now he’d use his brush. Hakuryuu followed to observe.

“Thalg Thalgeyya!”

As wind pushed frozen water from the clouds to roam the skies, Judar got excited. He hadn’t gotten to use real magic in weeks. Magic had kept him entertained for the first twenty years of his life. A siren was made to use magic. It was no fun letting his abilities rot just so he could play human. He directed the tornadoes to come closer, faster, then sent them back away towards the town before they destroyed the gate.

Hakuryuu took Judar’s brush. “That’s enough. I can see you can use it, so there’s no need to destroy the whole city.”

Judar tried to get it back but his arm was held in place by Hakuryuu. “What was that for! I haven’t gotten to use it in forever.”

“If anyone else figures out you can use magic, you’ll be in big trouble. So stop for now.”

Judar stared into Hakuryuu’s stern expression. The hold on his arm tightened into something that was almost painful. “Alright, alright. Let go.” He huffed and paced, then flopped back on Hakuryuu’s bed. It was much softer than the couch, but he couldn’t sleep on it. It was a ridiculous rule since it was clearly large enough for both of them, but Judar didn’t push his luck.

He didn’t mean to get carried away, but if he was going to show him anything at all, he wanted Hakuryuu to see everything he could do.

Once his head cooled, he felt a little dumb. If Hakuryuu did show anyone else, it could quickly get out of hand. They could figure he was a siren somehow and he could be hunted.

If that happened he would kill Hakuryuu. He would have to for the sake of his own survival. He’d never killed a human before, but he’d been cautioned many times that giving them any hints to his identity would be a kill or be killed situation.

“Weren’t you teaching me the human language? Keep doing that.”

“The human language? Is that what you call it?”

Judar cursed himself internally. Damn his loose tongue. At the very least, Judar was confidant in his ability to play dumb when it came to his small mistakes. “I thought that’s what you said it was called. It’s not?”

“The modern language,” Hakuryuu said.

The lesson continued as usual. Hakuryuu went back to ignoring everything he said in Torran now that he had learned what he wanted to know.

Content with his progress, at the end of the day Hakuryuu told him something interesting. “You probably know enough of the modern language to go out into the market now. I’m not giving you any money, but you might get into less trouble with something to do.” Hakuryuu’s rukh betrayed his words - he was filled with anticipation now that he had seen magic’s destructive power. He probably felt safer locking Judar out of his room for the day instead of locking him in.

Whether he was nervous or not, it was a huge gamble for Hakuryuu to make any decision regarding Judar now. Unless he was confidant that he could confiscate anything Judar could use as a staff, Judar could easily kill him and he knew it. The fact that Hakuryuu wanted his power enough to ignore that risk was appealing enough for Judar to play along with whatever Hakuryuu wanted him to do for the time being.

“The market, huh… I’ve never been in one,” Judar confessed.

“I thought Torran villages had markets too.”

“Not mine,” Judar said. “It was small.” Scrolls on Torran villages gave Judar enough information to know what he could tell Hakuryuu and what he needed to lie about. The more open their relationship was, the easier things would be for him. Everything Hakuryuu said seemed to be true, at least according to his rukh. So he felt like he could trust Hakuryuu with facts like how big his ‘village’ was in return. If anything, it made his story more plausible.

He couldn’t tell Hakuryuu that he was a siren, obviously. That would be suicide.

Instead, he would continue as he was until he fit in. So Hakuryuu didn’t need to know that one little thing about his origins. If he thought everyone from those Torran villages could use magic, then that was fine. Judar would add to the story until it became the truth. It was better to stay human in Hakuryuu's eyes.

Judar had figured out the relationship between Torran people and sirens easy enough. It must have been something like… a siren, from an age where they had no language of their own, came to the surface. Most humans spoke in a way their voices couldn’t mimic so it was useless trying to learn from them. But some humans spoke in a language that was easy for their mouths.

That siren must have just brought the Torran people’s language back down with them when they went back to the sea. It made the most sense out of any other explanation.

Before letting him leave, Hakuryuu tried to get Judar to remove his gold. “It’s conspicuous,” he said. “Why do you even have it? I’d think you would have just sold it to rent a room instead of passing out in the palace.”

Judar pulled his arms away from Hakuryuu, annoyed. “It’s not like you can even see it that well from under my sleeves. And what’s ‘conspicuous,’ anyway?”

“It means you look suspicious. Though maybe it’s just because you’re clearly suspicious, no matter how I think about it.” He flicked Judar's braid to make a point.

“…It’s from my parents,” Judar grumbled. “I’m not selling it.” He couldn’t tell Hakuryuu that the real reason he wouldn’t part with them was because of their magoi concentration. 

And his jewelry _was_ from his parents. Couldn't get caught in a lie if he was telling the truth.

Hakuryuu’s eyes softened somewhat. “Fine. But don’t come crying to me if a guard takes them.”

In the following days, Judar began venturing outside of Hakuryuu’s room. He had been advised to spend as little time as possible in the palace itself as it was far more difficult to talk his way out of anything that may happen within the palace walls than out in the city proper. Hakuryuu said his best bet for an excuse within the palace was that he was “a slave assigned to clean.” Slave. Judar didn’t like that, and Hakuryuu didn’t seem to either, but he knew it was the best thing to say while he was unfamiliar with the city and couldn’t speak the human language perfectly.

Humans had an odd power structure where one was inherently more important than the others. Hakuryuu was a prince. That meant that he ranked pretty high on the hierarchy. He lacked confidence while answering Judar’s questions about it, though. Hakuryuu needed magic to do something, and Judar was tagging along for that reason. Magic was power, and power was rank. So Hakuryuu had to have ambitions to reach higher on the human hierarchy. It was interesting to see where it took him.

A human’s life was short, only a few decades long. They could probably count every day the sun rose in their lives without reaching numbers they couldn’t name. His own life appeared endless in comparison. He could stand to help this one desperate human achieve his goals - he had the time. And it was fun being around Hakuryuu. In all honestly, Judar was having more fun than he’d ever had in his life. Everything was new and different and happened so quickly.

Just the day before, someone had gotten in a fight in a market over some fish. And the day before that, Judar heard a servant admit to sleeping with royalty, and was harshly questioned by the others. Things of that sort happened every day. Even though human lives were short, they were so filled with energy. Soon he would master the human language completely be a part of their world as well.

Sometimes it felt like Hakuryuu was keeping him under tight security by the way he told Judar to act in public. As time went on, that feeling faded. It became apparent that Hakuryuu was just slow to trust.

Once Judar was nearly fluent in speaking the human language, he accompanied Hakuryuu to the market. Hakuryuu was the one with the money, so he could try new things for the first time.

All humans knew what fruit was, but Judar didn’t. He ordered Hakuryuu to buy him a brightly colored fruit that smelled sweeter than even the sweetest soup. Hakuryuu rolled his eyes, but obliged. “Did you have peaches where you used to live?”

Judar shook his head, then bit into it. His eyes widened. It was sweet just like how it smelled. The juice felt sticky on his hands but the taste in his mouth was indescribable. It was unlike any taste from the sea.

“I didn’t think you would,” Hakuryuu said. “As far as I know, they only grow within Kou’s borders.”

“It’s good,” Judar said through a mouthful of fruit.

“There’s a peach tree on the palace grounds. It should be producing fruit around now.”

Judar nodded. He would have to find it when they went back.

“While we’re here, there’s something you need to buy,” Hakuryuu told him. “Clothes. You can speak well enough now, so you don’t need to dress like that. I’ll also be able to just fire you if you mess up from now on.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Judar complained. He wiped the peach’s juice on his sleeve as he followed Hakuryuu through the market’s crowded streets.

“It means you’re getting promoted,” Hakuryuu said. “From now on, your best excuse is that you’re my retainer. You’ll be allowed in the palace alone like that. You could rent somewhere in the city, but…” Hakuryuu looked at him, eyes filled with doubt. “You don’t know how to pay taxes or anything, do you?”

“The fuck are taxes?”

“Thought so. It’s probably best if I just prepare a spare room in the palace for you. I would have done that sooner, but I was afraid if a servant came in to clean while you were half asleep you would start babbling in Torran to them.”

“No I wouldn’t.”

“You have done that exact thing to me before.”

Judar huffed. “Not my fault you get up so damn early every day.”

“I get up at a completely normal time. You’re the weird one.”

“Am not! What’s the point of getting up before the sun, anyway? That’s just weird.”

“So I can make breakfast without anyone bothering me. Here’s where we need to be.” Hakuryuu pointed toward a small building with a bright sign next to it advertising clothes.

Inside, it was much quieter than in the streets. Hakuryuu immediately began talking to the large human behind the counter in a business-like fashion. “He needs to be fitted for better clothes…” Hakuryuu said.

“Five years are over?” The tailor asked with a smile. Judar didn’t know how to respond. He was pretty sure he hadn’t been on the surface for five years.

“Yes,” Hakuryuu answered for him.

The tailor looked from Hakuryuu’s white clothes to Judar’s brown clothes. He then walked to a stand with many types of silk on display and motioned Hakuryuu over. “Please choose something suitable while I measure him,” he said.

The tailor walked back over to Judar with a piece of fabric, numbered for measuring his sizes so something could be sewn. “Take off your clothes,” he instructed.

“Huh…?”

“It will make it easier to measure. Aren’t you looking forward to being freed, after all?”

“Don’t take them off,” Judar said without considering how he might react. Yunan and Scheherazade’s warnings echoed in his head. He absolutely, absolutely couldn’t let them see that he wasn’t human.

It might have worked when Hakuryuu changed his wet clothes out when he had first arrived because the room was dark and because Hakuryuu had left his undergarments on. But there was no way it would work here in the well-lit shop’s side room for measuring.

Hakuryuu turned to look questioningly at Judar as the man tried to untie his shirt so he could measure his chest. Judar removed his hands and stepped back, quickly moving his clothes back to their proper place.

“Just measure him clothed,” Hakuryuu said. “He’s shy.”

The tailor sighed. “It wouldn’t fit right, sir.”

“…Make him something looser then. It doesn’t matter if it’s loose because he won’t be doing hard labor.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Judar let out the breath he was holding. He hadn’t expected Hakuryuu to help him out like that. Then again, maybe it wasn’t so unexpected. Hakuryuu didn’t mind if he bathed without supervision even when they barely knew each other.

He had noticed people staring at Hakuryuu in the market. The blotchy scars on his face seemed to draw attention even quicker than his expensive clothes. Maybe it would be believable if he lied to say he had similar scars. Or maybe that was what they were assuming in the first place. 

It was possible that Hakuryuu had noticed there was something wrong with his body in the beginning, too. But Judar figured he would have asked about it already if he had. He doubted that Hakuryuu noticed the thin outline of scales on his legs, but…

Yunan and Scheherazade said that it was impossible to become human without the use of that special magic. They made it sound like he would be found out instantly if anyone else saw. Judar didn’t know. He didn’t know what a human was supposed to look like because everyone went around clothed. Maybe his body was all wrong, hideous and monstrous to a human. Or maybe it was barely noticeable from certain angles and Yunan had just been trying to scare the recklessness out of him. He didn’t know.

After he was measured, Judar was allowed to look at the fabric with Hakuryuu. He was given a choice of several colors - “nothing brown, green, or white,” he was told. Anything else was fine.

The remaining silk prints were mostly reds and blues. Judar ended up choosing a red style. Though his tail was blue, it didn’t exist anymore. So red was the obvious choice.

Unfortunately, not even a tailor could make clothes out of air. He handed Hakuryuu a note for his order and they left, back into the market. It had quieted down some compared to earlier. The evening crowd would come soon, but for now business was slow as slaves had already returned from shopping and laborers hadn’t gotten off work yet.

It was weird, that human hierarchy. Judar wasn’t sure how much Hakuryuu noticed or cared about it in general and didn’t want to ask. He didn’t know enough about it to ask questions while sounding convincingly human. So he ignored the questions burning in his throat and followed Hakuryuu back to the palace.

“Soon you’ll be free to wander here as you see fit,” Hakuryuu mumbled as they walked through the gates. “But there are exceptions. I will show you the places you can go and which you’re forbidden from entering.”

Again with the restrictions. Oh well, progress was progress. He liked to think of it more like the unfolding pieces of a story than a pile of restrictions. They changed so much faster than they would have under the sea that it didn’t really feel like he was being restricted at all, so he had the mind to not complain.

“You’ll have about the same ranking as Seishun, so if he visits in the coming months feel free to talk to him… But don’t tell him anything. You’re just someone who was in the right place at the right time, who came to the capital from one of the rural border provinces. That is all he will ever need to know.” 

Hakuryuu smiled at him to make sure he understood. Judar smiled back.

So he really was planning something.

Hakuryuu showed him several places that Judar hadn’t been to yet, from the peach tree to the training grounds. “I spend most of the day in studying, as is expected of royalty. Don’t interfere with that.”

“Yeah, yeah. I get it.” Judar had completed his ‘schooling’ forever ago. He was surprised that Hakuryuu was still doing it. His responsibilities seemed much closer to that of a scholar’s than what a prince of a militaristic country should be doing, despite that he clearly practiced fighting. Judar refrained from asking. Hakuryuu probably wouldn't answer even if he did ask.

“This wing,” Hakuryuu motioned to the hall that Judar knew led to his quarters, “leads to the bedchambers. It splits several times, and you already know not to enter any rooms other than mine. That would be very hard to explain even now.”

Hakuryuu turned away from that hall and led Judar down another. “The palace retainers live in this hall so they can protect their masters in a crisis.” Hakuryuu looked at Judar’s thin arms. “You can’t stay here because you can’t fight.”

“Can too.”

“Can you even hold a sword?”

Judar wrinkled his nose. A guard was standing watch nearby and he couldn't argue that his magic was stronger than any sword.

“Instead I can give you a room in the domestic servant’s quarters," Hakuryuu said. "If I remember correctly, it’s somewhat drafty in there.”

“What the hell, isn’t that a downgrade?”

“I don’t know what else to do with you.”

“Just let me keep your couch.”

Hakuryuu sighed. “Surely you aren’t so dull that you don’t understand the implications of that.”

“Of what?”

“If anyone noticed you, it would appear in every way that I decided to share my room with a male prostitute for the past two months. A few nights is one thing, but months?”

“What’s a prostitute?”

Hakuryuu looked doubtful. “They don’t have those everywhere?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I just don’t know the word.”

“You know, pay for sex?”

“…”

Hakuryuu sighed. “Read a novel or something. Come on, I’m not done showing you around.”

He was shown the imperial gardens, a sprawling landscape of trimmed trees and lotus ponds and streams. Waterfowl floated lazily along the water’s surface, taking little notice of them, as they walked across bridges decorated just as ornately as the palace’s halls. Judar was glad to breathe in the fresh air. The gardens were out of their way on the tour, but Hakuryuu must have also been glad for the fresh air for how he lingered before moving on.

Next up was the wing containing the library. In the past, Judar had only spent time in the area with Torran language materials and history - Hakuryuu had always fetched the miscellaneous scrolls Judar needed to read. This time Hakuryuu pointed out where the fiction was, the medical books, and philosophy. The many rooms of Kou history and population statistics. Judar was amazed that humans spent so much of their time recording things. Maybe they were worried it would be forgotten when they died.

A siren never really worried about their death, so it was fine to just remember the important things. Judar had never thought of writing them down. If a human could create a several volume long memoir of only thirty years of life, Judar would be able to fill the whole library with his own life by the time it was over.

But only if his life amounted to something. The first twenty years couldn’t have been enough to fill half of a scroll.

“There are sitting rooms around here to read in as well. A few people normally favor each room so it’s best to find the quietest, if possible.” Hakuryuu opened the door to the nearest one and Judar peered in. It was empty. He took a few steps in to find it was lit by a skylight to read by.

Judar was about to head back out the door to follow Hakuryuu when the wall caught his eyes. A large painting spread across silk that covered the wall. The painting was that of the ocean. Directly across from him, a siren swam parallel to a boat.

Hakuryuu’s steps brought Judar out of his daze as he came in to see what was keeping Judar. His eyes settled on the same painting. “It’s a siren,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“The previous emperor had this painted. I hear this was his favorite place to read.”

Judar stepped closer to the wall to look more closely. The siren was a woman with hair as long and as black as his own. “Why sirens?”

Hakuryuu looked away from the siren. “The rumor is that his wife was a siren.”

“Oh.” Judar looked away from the woman on the wall back to Hakuryuu. It would have been impossible not to notice the mole they shared and the similar shape of their faces. “Your mother.”

“Yes.”

“So you’re half siren,” Judar observed. “Did she tell you anything about it?”

“Never. It’s just a rumor anyway.”

No, Judar thought. The woman in the painting had every characteristic of a siren. Long, dark hair like his own. Gill slits down her chest and ribs. If she lived near coast only a few days’ walk outside the city, there was a chance he had even met her as a child.

After all, the colony that Judar grew up in wasn’t really his own. His place of birth had been destroyed.

Scheherazade had sensed the change and checked for survivors, and brought Judar to stay in her own colony. All he had to remember his birth colony by was the small chest of valuables that Scheherazade found in the cave he was in. His gold bracelets and gold choker had come from that chest. There were other things, too, but Judar could never find a use for them. Rusted trinkets that had likely fallen from the surface and pretty little shells. He hadn’t bothered bringing them up to the surface.

Most other sirens in his adoptive colony had light hair. It was only Judar who had hair as black as the sea. Seeing another siren with the same characteristic set his thoughts in motion. 

“She still alive?” Judar asked.

“Yes. She is the wife of the current emperor.”

Judar was starting to see where Hakuryuu’s status as a prince fell in the human hierarchy. He had never heard of a siren remarrying before, either. Partnerships were something more final than that. Maybe for humans it was different.

It left him with a distinct dislike of her either way.

“…Alright,” Judar said. “Where to next?”

“That was all. I would introduce you to my sister’s attendant so that you can learn to be useful, but… He isn’t around for the time being.”

“Why not?”

“He is with my sister on an expedition in the central plains. She’s a general in the army.”

“Why aren’t you?”

Hakuryuu met his eyes and ignored the question. It wasn’t the right place to ask, it seemed.

Before long they were back in Hakuryuu’s room. He locked the door behind him as he entered, same as usual. “Not going to agree to leaving here, are you.”

Judar smiled and lay on Hakuryuu’s bed. “No way. I’m not giving up my royal couch so I can live like a maid.”

Hakuryuu sighed. “You’re lucky I don’t have a reputation to uphold. I guess it’s not so bad now that you’re my retainer…”

Judar refrained from answering. He still didn’t understand what the problem was but it would be pointless to ask and sound like an idiot. “I’m hungry,” he said instead.

“I’m surprised you still have room for dinner after all those peaches.”

“They aren’t filling at all, you know? I want fish.”

“You’re spoiled,” Hakuryuu sighed. “Have the cooks prepare it for you. I’m tired.”

“I can’t. I’m still dressed like a slave, remember?” Judar didn’t bother trying to keep the annoyance from his voice.

“A slave,” Hakuryuu repeated tiredly. After taking out his golden hair ornament and running his hand through his hair, he continued. “The current emperor's son is the one who introduced slavery to Kou and the emperor's wife is the one who brought them to power at the cost of my family.” Hakuryuu sat down on his bed across from where Judar lay. “It didn’t used to be like that here. They’re subjugating the other regions, too. It’s like it isn’t Kou anymore.”

Judar listened curiously. It’d been months, but it sounded like Hakuryuu finally trusted him enough to tell him something.

“I need your magic. If I… if we kill them. Then Kou could go back to how it used to be before they stole it Back to how it was under my father and brothers.”

Judar sat up and met Hakuryuu’s eyes. He looked a little hopeless. If his mother was really a siren, he had a right to be. She would have had magic all this time with Hakuryuu never knowing. The power to freeze the sea and burn the land… 

Something clicked in Judar’s mind. Of course those scars on Hakuryuu’s face were burn scars.

“I’ll help,” Judar said. “But don’t think magic will make it easy.”

“Of course not. I’m not asking you to do it for me. I just need… more power to make it possible.”

“If you killed the emperor and his wife, wouldn’t that make you emperor?”

“That or a prisoner.”

Judar laughed. Humans were wonderful. There were no hierarchies and no power struggles in the sea, but on land, they were everywhere. Two months since coming to land and he was already involved in a plot to kill the emperor. It was more interesting than the servants gossiping and more interesting than street fights. Even compared to the little goals of those antagonistic humans, Hakuryuu was really a work of art, planning to kill his own family like it was what he was born to do.

If his own parents had been intentionally killed—murdered—it might have been by someone like Hakuryuu. It was unlikely since sirens weren’t so quick to turn to violence as humans. But it left him with a distinct curiosity. He wanted to see how Hakuryuu’s plan unfolded, even if it meant putting it in motion.

After all, they were just humans. Even if he didn’t interfere they’d still die soon. He was looking forward to seeing how Hakuryuu used that little bit of time the rukh had allotted to him.


	5. Chapter 5

In the mornings Hakuryuu woke so early that Judar usually missed him. Sometimes he would leave food for Judar to eat for breakfast and sometimes he wouldn’t. Judar figured they were leftovers when there was something there. It was a little annoying thinking that he might just be eating Hakuryuu’s leftovers, but no one had made much of an effort to make sure Judar stayed alive since was old enough to catch his own food. And it was a little nice waking up to something to eat.

Kinda gross when it was long cold, though.

Once he had been left some kind of fruit with orange flesh and a stone in the center similar to a peach. It was sweet, but not as sweet as a peach. Since it was an uncut fruit it couldn’t have been leftovers.

He wondered if Hakuryuu had been in a good mood that morning, but when he saw him later in the day he was about the same as usual. It wasn’t that Hakuryuu was depressing or always in a bad mood or anything, he just didn’t seem like he was living life sometimes. He went through the motions in the same way Judar had done for most of his life, fending for himself more than bothering to worry about others. It was strange to think that he would go through the trouble to get food for someone else at all.

Other times - only once or twice, really - Judar was woken up by Hakuryuu getting ready in the morning. Hakuryuu had other rooms attached to his own for getting dressed and preparing to leave for the day so he was usually reasonably quiet. Still, on days that Judar slept lightly he would sit up in a daze from the early morning light, and Hakuryuu would acknowledge him by exchanging a few words.

The first time Hakuryuu said that Judar should try to get up earlier more often instead of lazing around all morning.

The second time Hakuryuu just told him to go back to sleep since he switched back to Torran when he was tired.

It was weird talking to someone when he was half asleep. Judar had never lived in especially close quarters with anyone else. He felt that seeing someone and feeling warm in the shared morning light was a very human experience.

A few times Judar was woken in the middle of the night by Hakuryuu as well. The room was large enough that usually anything Hakuryuu did on the other side was too quiet to hear from where Judar slept, but there were exceptions.

The first time it happened, Judar woke to a yelp. He couldn’t even really tell that it was Hakuryuu’s voice - only when he sat up and saw no one else in the dark room did he reach that conclusion. He walked over slowly, careful not to make sudden movements, and didn’t know what to think when he saw that Hakuryuu still appeared to be asleep.

Asleep, but not sleeping well. His face and hair were covered in sweat, his teeth gritted, a pained noise escaping occasionally. It was bizarre. Judar tried to make out his words but most sounded like nothing more than nonsense.

“Bro…ther…”

Hakuryuu’s arms shook and he looked like he was about to cry. Judar didn’t wake him. Instead, he walked just as quietly back to his makeshift bed and lay down.

Brother… that was right, he’d lost them. Just as Judar had lost his parents. At least Hakuryuu _had_ memories. Memories to remind him of what he was fighting for, who he needed to get revenge for. Judar had nothing. Maybe that was why he’d never put much effort into seeking out the truth of that incident.

Even if he’d wanted to, there wasn’t much Judar could have done in his colony. No one there would have known the reason Judar's colony died. No one ever seemed like they really knew what happened - not that Judar wasted any time asking. He had no trails to follow and no memories of his parents to tempt him into following the same path as Hakuryuu. All he had was the dim feeling of what life had been like without any family.

Judar thought of the woman in the library, the siren painted on silk. She looked like she belonged in Kou just as much as she looked like she belonged in the sea. He didn’t think they were related, but couldn’t discount the possibility that they came from the same waters. And if that was the case, it was strange. It was clearly strange. The only other colony in the area he knew of was the one he'd grown up in, and from the flashes of rukh that'd lit their forms for brief moments, Judar had plainly seen that their features were much brighter than his own. Brighter than that of Hakuryuu's siren mother's.

Colonies were few and far between thanks to centuries of human hunting. It was a stretch to think she might have known of his colony, but not an illogical one.

Judar only survived by chance. If anyone else in the area had survived what had been described to him as a major incident - what he had always taken to be a kind way to say massacre - that made them worth investigating. A sudden anger flared up in his chest. 

Was that the same anger Hakuryuu felt when he thought of her?

It was unlikely that Judar had any reason to feel angry. He wanted to know the truth of that day, sure, but it'd already been twenty years since it’d happened. Chances were that any conclusion he came to would be wrong with the little evidence he had.

Hakuryuu’s cries faded. Judar slept soon after. He didn’t mention what he saw to Hakuryuu the next day, and didn't mention it to him any of the following times it happened. The death of his brothers was something personal that Judar didn’t feel the need to intrude on. Plus, he didn’t want to get kicked out of Hakuryuu’s room for eavesdropping on his dreams.

Since he agreed to help Hakuryuu, Judar had been practicing magic. The best place would have been as far as he could get from humans, deep in the sea. But he wasn’t about to regrow his tail and return. And it wasn’t like the palace was close enough to the ocean to go walk the whole way daily.

But there was nowhere suitable in Rakushou. It was a huge city full of people of all kinds. If even one person saw him, he’d ruin his chances of staying. He didn’t trust anyone he saw with the knowledge of his magical ability. Only Hakuryuu who had invested too much effort to throw Judar’s ability away before it benefited him.

Judar was practicing a special kind of magic that would allow him to teleport through space. That way he wouldn’t have to spend hours walking to the edge of the city daily to practice. He could just bring himself to a forest or beach instantly, and teleport back when he was hungry.

It was a bit difficult, but Judar wasn’t bad at it. Magic was his specialty. There were no formulas that were too difficult for him to learn.

Many tests and tries later Judar was able to create a preliminary ‘jump’ through space. After that it was just a matter of expanding the formula to cover more ground. Once he perfected it, he went on to practice other types of magic during the day.

If he was going to help a human, he was going to do it so well that Hakuryuu wouldn’t be able to look away. As usual Judar’s urge to show off pushed him to the brink of carelessness - he constantly needed to bring magoi out from his jewelry to try new kinds of destructive magic, but it was fine, wasn’t it? He could just take a quick break from land once Hakuryuu died. It sounded like he practiced a pretty reckless lifestyle planning to murder the emperor and all. Judar couldn’t imagine him living long.

Despite his reluctance to use his tail for training, Judar vaguely recognized that he wasn’t doing a very good job of being human. Humans didn’t use magic. The good news was that humans didn’t know that humans couldn't use magic. They saw that it was impossible for themselves, as individuals, and just assumed that they had no magical talent. With that logic, anyone who could use magic was just a magical human to them. It never even occurred to them to think that maybe they were something inhuman. But that was fine.

It was good luck that his fluency in Torran gave him the perfect cover to pretend to be a Torran magician instead of a siren.

Practicing was fun but he couldn’t do it all the time. If he did, he’d be back in the sea before Hakuryuu accomplished his goals. That was something Judar would like to avoid, since he was tagging along to see the results of the royal drama. It was pointless to help without even getting to see the results - like listening to a story only to fall asleep before the resolution. Completely pointless. He had to take breaks to conserve his magoi, just to be safe. Taking those breaks once the sun began to set was best since that was when Hakuryuu was free, too. He continued to spend each evening with Hakuryuu, to the other’s occasional annoyance. 

Much of that annoyance came from when he was trying to get something done that Judar didn’t feel like letting him do. It was ridiculous that he often finished his work for the day just to come back to his room and sit right down at his desk to work on something else.

“Weren’t you just out there studying all day?” Judar complained. He plucked Hakuryuu’s brush from between his fingers, dragging over the half-dried notes he was taking just to be mean. It didn’t have the impact he was hoping for, though. The letters only barely blurred instead of smearing.

“Feel free to move to the servant’s quarters,” Hakuryuu said. “You’d be doing us both a favor.”

“Hey! What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that you’re being annoying!” Hakuryuu said as he pulled his brush back out of Judar’s reach for fear he’d get ink all over his paper.

Judar leaned over Hakuryuu’s back to try to get it back and grinned when it worked. Now that he’d been living with Hakuryuu for months, being physically close didn’t give him the same kind of over-the-top physical reaction it used to. It was just normal.

A little warm. But mostly normal.

He dipped the brush in ink and drew a thick black line across the paper and laughed when Hakuryuu stood to forcefully take his quill back by holding Judar’s arms in place.

It didn’t take long to get it back when Hakuryuu put his mind to it - he was much stronger than Judar. Their eyes met for only a second before Hakuryuu took it and let go of, putting the cap on his ink and returning the brush to its proper location.

It might not have been weird anymore, but Judar was still acutely aware of how close humans tended to stand. For once Hakuryuu seemed equally aware and took a step back after a moment.

“I’m kicking you out for real when my sister returns from the plains,” Hakuryuu said. “Please prepare accordingly.”

“It doesn’t matter that I’m here,” Judar argued. “What are you even worried about?” As time went on and Judar become more and more sure that he’d already learned the basics of human culture, he was more confident in asking questions.

“Like I said, the problem is my sister. She’s a woman. I don’t want her asking about something like that.”

That was another strange human thing. In the sea, what kind of a body someone had didn’t mean shit. To Judar’s knowledge, they were all kinda the same anyway. It just so happened that their language referenced gender so they’d taken to using the same pronouns. Everyone just picked whatever they felt like being called, which meant they were subject to change. For humans it was more concrete. Linked to their reproduction, or something.

Of course Judar did his research and everything. Human reproduction was complicated. And it was supposed to feel good. There was no penetration for sirens and there was no feeling. The only purpose reproduction had was to make children. Humans cared much more about it.

So the problem was something like this: Hakuryuu didn’t want his sister to think he had sexual relations with Judar because Hakuei was a woman. Apparently sleeping in someone’s room was highly suggestive of such a thing.

Even so, Hakuryuu had made it clear in a roundabout way that it was fine until his sister came back, and her expedition wasn’t scheduled to return for months. So Judar continued to stubbornly sleep on Hakuryuu’s couch and bother him while he studied.

He didn’t know much about Hakuryuu, but the little time they spent together was usually much more enjoyable than what he’d have had if he stayed in the sea. He felt more energetic, too. Maybe it was the sunlight, or just the fast pace everything went at. Nothing was boring.

Every now and then Judar caught Hakuryuu in the middle of the day and they ate lunch together. Back when Judar had first arrived, he didn’t know anything about human food and just ate whatever Hakuryuu handed to him. That probably would have worked if he were human, but the reality was that he couldn’t stomach a lot of things. First and foremost was dairy - once Hakuryuu had given him a soup with a base of milk, something that was rare in Kou in the first place - and Judar had thrown it right up. Not fun. Judar soon refused to try new things for his own good.

Hakuryuu only stared blankly, almost like he’d expected it, and told Judar a servant would clean it up and that he should take a bath to clean himself.

Maybe Hakuryuu had foods he couldn’t stomach, too.

Other than that, Judar didn’t really like grains. They tasted weird and made his throat feel dry. A single pepper was enough to render a dish incredibly spicy and he felt sick when presented with an overly fragrant dish. Worst of all were vegetables - Hakuryuu claimed he needed them to be healthy, but Judar was pretty sure it was a lie like Yunan used to tell him.

Through his complaining Hakuryuu ended up serving dishes perfectly to his liking when he didn’t have the time to argue. When he did have the time to argue, Judar was often given meat with vegetables hidden inside or an appetizer that Hakuryuu conveniently forgot to mention had diced chilies inside.

Fortunately, most of the time Hakuryuu had too many things to do in the middle of the day to try to get Judar to eat something healthy. Unfortunately, today was not a normal day.

“I think you’ll like yams. They taste good with duck, and they’re pretty sweet.”

Judar eyed the yam dubiously. “It looks dangerous. You could probably kill someone with this thing.”

“Good thing you’ll be eating it instead of fighting it.”

Judar groaned. “Enough new stuff! Just make fish or something.”

“Learn to cook yourself if you want fish. I am having yam, so you can have some or go eat more peaches instead.”

Judar wrinkled his nose. Unfortunately, his body didn’t hold up well on nothing but peaches. And he’d tried, too. Really. But it just didn’t work. And sure, he could eat raw fish. But it gave him a bad feeling. Humans didn’t rip holes in fish and stick their faces in to eat them so he wouldn’t while he was on land either. Besides, it was a lot more fun to pester Hakuryuu. Even if it did occasionally involve having to stomach a vegetable.

“Yams are orange in the middle,” Hakuryuu said as he cut the duck breast into thin slices. “They really don’t taste too different from fruit.”

“That’s what you said about beets and those were gross.”

“I really am curious how you’ve lived this long without eating vegetables.”

“By eating good food.”

“Such as?”

“Fish.”

“And?”

Judar closed his eyes in thought. There had to be something else. Something else, something else… “Clams,” he finally said.

“You lived by the coast?”

“Yeah.”

“What about seaweed?” Hakuryuu dropped the slices of duck into a pan. The clay stove was already lit and it didn’t take long for the meat to begin to sizzle.

“It tastes weird.”

“Of course you would think so,” Hakuryuu sighed. “If you collapse while training from malnutrition one of these days, don’t say I didn’t tell you so.” 

“I’m not going to collapse!”

“Maybe not today. But what about a year from now of nothing but peaches and fish?” Hakuryuu began to push a knife into the yam. It took only a few seconds for the knife to slide through with a satisfying noise.

“I’ll still be fine,” Judar protested.

Hakuryuu looked at Judar, observing his face. “You have noticed that you’re pretty pale, haven’t you?”

Judar looked at his arms. Maybe they were a little lighter than Hakuryuu’s. “So?”

“You look anemic.”

“Anemic,” Judar repeated. He didn’t know that word.

“Sick.”

Judar hadn’t realized that it was a sign of sickness. A part of him was still weary about being tricked, but the more gullible side of him was beginning to really worry about collapsing. If he collapsed on those rocky cliffs, too drained from training for his borg to activate, he’d be a goner for sure… 

“Going to eat your vegetables now?” Hakuryuu asked. Judar had no way of knowing that there really wasn’t much in vegetables that would help his complexion so he bought into it pretty easily.

“I’ll do it today,” Judar said. “But just because you said it’s sweet.”

The days continued like that. Be a siren magician, then be human.

It wasn’t sustainable, but it wasn’t like he had enough magoi to keep himself on land for the rest of his life in the first place. Still, it would be nice if he could stay on land for all of Hakuryuu’s life, however short it would be.

Of course, if Hakuryuu had his way, Judar would be practicing magic day and night. But that was impossible.

By getting rid of some of the layers of magic Judar kept on to appear human, his magoi would drain slower. He didn’t need to speak in the human language while practicing. And if he went into the ocean just far enough that he could submerge his chest, he didn’t need strong lungs either. He still refused to give up his legs.

So far he had learned many types of magic that were only possible on land. First was fire magic, which was similar in composition to thunder magic but relied on a whole different type of rukh. The first time he used it he accidentally set the forest on fire and had to drop part of the ocean on it. It would have been an embarrassing mistake if anyone else was there to see it.

Then he figured out how to make light from magic - though it wasn’t impossible in the ocean, he had never seen it in use. The rukh that helped most in light magic was rukh from the sun, but he was sure there was some other kind of rukh they could use down there for it. Maybe the bottom of the sea would have been more interesting lit up. But they would never know about it at the bottom of the sea because he would never go back to his colony.

Not now that he’d seen what the rest of the world was like.

The magic that every siren used to adjust the pressure within their bodies could be used outside of the body as well. When it was, he could make himself jump or even float. It would probably be useful for evading attacks, but to be honest, his next goal was learning how to fly with it.

Why? Because it was cool, obviously.

When Judar finished practicing for the day he returned to the palace. It took him a few weeks of exploring to find a courtyard garden complete with a pond, less out of the way than the imperial gardens. It was filled with a different scent than Hakuryuu’s room. Apparently, the differences in smells came from different incense used in the diffusers. Hakuryuu said the one in his room was sandalwood, but that patchouli was another common smell around the palace. So it was probably patchouli.

He peered into the pond from the pavilion, expecting to see sand or rocks, the same as when he stared into the shallow sea. But it was different. A face stared back at him.

Judar fell back, startled. He’d noticed that puddles and the stream in the imperial garden sometimes reflected his feet before he stepped in them. But it never occurred to him to look at his own face with it. He blinked, and widened his eyes. Ran a finger through his bangs and watched as reflection did the same.

It was a strange feeling. He liked how faces looked, and his own was no exception.

It was odd that only the sea didn’t reflect the world back. Instead it swallowed the light. He exited the pavilion and touched the surface of the pond experimentally. Ripples extended from his fingertips, but they weren’t enough to destroy the picture of himself completely.

Judar surveyed his surroundings, checking to make sure that no one had appeared. He was still alone. He clicked off his choker. Without it, the air felt close enough that it made him shiver. He turned his head left and right slowly. The water didn’t reflect a perfect picture and it was difficult to find what he was looking for. The wind on his neck was a strange feeling. He returned the choker to its place and checked his surroundings again - he was still alone.

Sighing, Judar stood. It might have been impossible to find what he was looking for where people might see him, gills exposed, in the reflection of a courtyard pond.

Hakuryuu’s burn scars couldn’t have been recent. If they were then they would probably hurt. When Judar was younger, he was injured as well. A deep cut had stretched from the edge of his neck to the bottom of his gills on his right side, as if someone had tried to cut off his breathing long ago. Seems as the rest of his colony died then, that was probably exactly what had happened.

As he got older the effect it had on his breathing lessened and everyone forgot that he had ever been hurt. After all, no one could have seen something like a scar in the dark. He couldn’t feel it anymore, either, and the outline of the scar on his chest wasn’t especially well defined. But he was curious if there was worse scarring on the thin skin of his neck. And he wanted to see the upper row of his gills.

Vain, sure, but it was his first time seeing his own face.

In addition to that, he wanted to look at more hard-to-see places in the reflection so he could compare them to humans. But it was impossible to see it well in the courtyard garden that anyone could walk by. It wasn’t worth the trouble it’d take to explain. So he left and went elsewhere.

His favorite place in the palace was in the branches of the trees with hanging leaves - Hakuryuu said they were called willows. Their branches didn’t have too many hard edges and created enough shade for it to be the perfect napping spot. He could just nap and eat peaches until Hakuryuu was done with his lessons. It was great.

In sitting under the tree for so long, Judar met a few people who used the training grounds his favorite tree was in. Most commonly, a princess trained. As the eighth princess, she had nothing to do with her time but practice and wait. She was kind of like Hakuryuu in that way.

In a lot of ways she was different from Hakuryuu, too. It didn’t take Judar long to realize that he honestly liked Hakuryuu more: he was less intrusive, quieter, and had more focused ambitions. He was fun to spend time with no matter how long Judar was with him.

The princess - Kougyoku - wasn’t the worst possible company or anything. It was nice to go out into town with her during the day sometimes. They had similar tastes. Other times, Judar couldn’t stand her unsure attempts at small talk. He told her Yunan’s old tricks to get her out of his hair multiple times. Every time, she fell for them.

Not that Judar had any right to make fun of that. But he did anyway.

At first Kougyoku was a little interested in how he’d gotten so close to Hakuryuu. And Judar was happy to talk about Hakuryuu. It was warm in a way that talking about other things never was. After the first ten minutes of listening to him talk about this or that Hakuryuu did, everything that came to his mind, even lonely Kougyoku got annoyed with it and stormed off.

It wasn’t only Kougyoku who he met at the training grounds. Sometimes the third prince came by too. He had such a big sword that it seemed ridiculous he could get it off the ground, much less swing it at anyone. Judar was amazed to see it in action. Kouha made it look light, much lighter than it could possibly be.

When Kouha noticed Judar after the third or fourth day of seeing him, he assumed that Judar was one of the emperor’s many attendants and tried to tell him off.

“Court is that way,” Kouha said. “Don’t you have work you’re skipping out on?”

“Nah. I got everything finished for the day.”

Kouha looked doubtful. “What’s your position? I never saw you until recently.”

Judar took a bite out of his peach. There weren’t as many as there had been when he first started eating the fruits. Before long, the tree would stop bearing fruit for the year. He had to take advantage of it while it lasted. “I’m Hakuryuu’s most trusted retainer,” he said. Well, he was the only one. And he was pretty sure that if Hakuryuu really trusted him he wouldn’t sleep with his sword next to his bed. But those were just details.

Kouha dropped his sword in shock. “Hakuryuu’s!?” 

The loud noise of the heavy metal hitting stone made Judar’s ears ring. “Yeah. So I definitely have a right to be here and all that.”

“W, wait. We’re talking about the same Hakuryuu, right? The mopey one? You must be… close…”

Judar took another bite of his peach. Close, huh. They spent every morning and evening together, but it didn’t feel like enough. Like they weren’t as close as they could be. Hakuryuu didn’t know anything about him, and he didn’t know much about Hakuryuu either. Even so, he was closer to Hakuryuu than he’d been to anyone before if ‘closeness’ was measured in time spent together. “I guess so.”

“It’s a miracle he trusted you enough to make you his attendant in the first place, and another miracle that he lets you slack off all day. He must really, really like you.”

It wasn’t that. It was that he was powerful. But Judar did feel like Hakuryuu was a little fond of him. More than most people he talked about, anyway.

Kouha was soon called away by someone who looked like he might be another prince. Judar ignored them in favor of taking a nap in the warm afternoon sun. Sometimes he slid off the branches in his sleep, but it was usually comfortable enough to be worth it since he was locked out of Hakuryuu’s room during the day.

Judar hadn’t met most of the royal family. He knew Hakuryuu was the youngest prince and Kougyoku was the eighth princess. Just as Hakuryuu had said weeks ago, there were lots of them. Kouha was the third prince, so there were two more princes and at least seven more princesses. But he’d only ever met the three.

Out of those three, Hakuryuu was the best. He would spend time with Kouha and Kougyoku when Hakuryuu was busy, but when he was available it was best to spend time with him. Though Judar’s original plan was to become sufficiently human and then travel the land as much as he wanted, he found himself wanting to be with Hakuryuu until he exhausted his short human life first.

Maybe he did like Hakuryuu a little too much. But he couldn’t help it. Hakuryuu was the one who introduced him to true freedom by teaching him the human language and elevating him to a high status so he could do as he pleased in the city instead of wandering it like a beggar, something that seemed to have happened to Yunan.

It was good luck that the first human who found him that day was power hungry enough to take such a huge risk as to keep a magician around. Hakuryuu’s determination against the odds never seemed to waiver. It was all too easy to waste time daydreaming about what might happen to him.

Hakuryuu was so much more interesting than anyone he’d talked to before, too. They argued a lot but there wasn’t any malice in it. No matter how many disgusting vegetables Hakuryuu fed him, he couldn’t find it in himself to get really mad about it. 

When he entered Hakuryuu’s room for the evening to see Hakuryuu already packing up his writing supplies, Judar smiled. “This is rare. Slacking off?”

“Hardly. There’s only so much I can do in a day.”

“Never thought I’d hear you say that. Guess you have tomorrow’s work all done, too?”

“No,” Hakuryuu said and bit his lip, glancing at his work. He didn’t look like he wanted to start on the next day's at all.

If it'd taken him that long to just complete one day’s, maybe he wasn't as smart as Judar had been assuming. Maybe he was just persistent. “You sure get a lot of work.”

“I requested extra material. It’s important that I learn political theory, after all.”

“Hmm. But if you make it to the throne, can’t you just make up your own theory?”

“That's not how it works, Judar. Here—”

Judar covered his ears. “No! I’m done with studying! I’m never looking at another sentence again!”

Hakuryuu smiled. He didn’t relax on principle, but he looked less stressed when he moved from his desk to sit at the edge of his bed. Judar joined him. 

“The crown would suit you,” Judar said. “Since you're working so hard for it.” Though he thought it’d still be interesting even if Hakuryuu died trying, seeing him make it all the way to the throne was becoming more appealing as the days stretched on.

“Most of the country believes it suits Kouen.”

“Well, I haven’t met him. But I think he's probably a pushover.”

Hakuryuu shook his head. “You haven’t seen the imperial army. They adore him.”

Judar shrugged. “Maybe it’s all flattery.”

“I’m sure _you_ would know.”

Judar frowned.

It was only then that Hakuryuu realized he’d forgotten to tell Judar off for sitting on his bed. He wrinkled his nose, probably more at himself for forgetting than at Judar for trying in the first place, and pointed to where Judar was supposed to be sleeping. The motion exposed a bruise running from his wrist to his elbow.

“What’s that from?” Judar asked. He poked it absentmindedly.

Hakuryuu jumped. Judar laughed.

“Does it hurt?”

“No, you just surprised me. It’s from training.”

Judar smiled. If Hakuryuu thought Judar was just trying to flatter him and yet still jumped at his touch, he was doing a poor job of flattery.

He could do better. He moved his hand from Hakuryuu’s arm to his back to lightly touch it. Hakuryuu visibly tensed.

But he didn’t tell Judar to go away.

“What do you think the rumors say?” Judar asked. “Think they say I’m just flattering you, as you said?”

“…I've been too busy with studying to listen to gossip. What are they saying?” Hakuryuu asked.

“That I should’ve picked a better prince if I want power. That I have the looks for it.”

“They should be careful. You’ll get full of yourself.”

“What do you think?” Judar asked, pointing to his face. “Think I could make it as big as they say?”

Hakuryuu turned to argue, but couldn’t find the words when they were face to face beside each other. He looked away. “Rumors aside, demanding lavish treatment from the palace staff isn't doing you any favors. My instructors seem to think I've picked up a gold digging urchin…”

“Maybe you have. I do like making them run around trying to find new and expensive soaps for my baths.”

“You’re so troublesome. It's no wonder you're at the center of palace gossip lately.”

Judar laughed. “To think the rumors are so ahead of themselves. You’ve not even given me a real bed to sleep in. Really, how am I supposed to fight for you with a sore back?” Judar stood and yawned. He dug through Hakuryuu’s clothes chest for something to sleep in and changed in a side room behind a screen. He was sure to tie it as tightly as possible, trying several times to slide it down past his gills. Just to make sure that it wouldn’t go.

It wasn’t tight enough if he only tied it once. Twice was better, but he couldn’t be sure. Three times was hard to get comfortable in, but it was the least likely to expose himself.

Judar liked to test his luck.

When he changed was he flopped back on Hakuryuu's comfortable bed with a contented sigh, pulling a pillow to his chest. It felt like it had clouds inside.

Hakuryuu spared him no more than a glance. “So spoiled,” he mumbled.

Hakuryuu’s rukh, honest to a fault, betrayed him. It fluttered towards Judar cautiously. Curiously. Watched him in the dim light of the oil lamp that was so close to burning out.

Hakuryuu’s rukh was much brighter than his own. And much more expressive. Judar’s mingled with Hakuryuu’s but it was impossible to mix them up. His own rukh reflected no light and wasn’t nervous like Hakuryuu’s. He closed his eyes, close enough to Hakuryuu’s back to feel his body heat but not close enough to feel the curve of his spine.

Hakuryuu was the first person he had ever wanted to lay with. It might have been nothing more than a desire to understand palace gossip of sharing a bed with another. Or maybe he was just chasing the warmth of another body in the same way creatures of the surface seemed to chase the sun.

He knew it wasn’t something he’d want to do with Kougyoku or Kouha, though. Hakuryuu was special.

Despite his own feelings, he knew that Hakuryuu wanted him for a simple objective: revenge. Taking his country back. Judar was happy to help. The tumultuous human world of his dreams was his new life, and Hakuryuu was his new future… for as long as he lasted, anyways.

Judar had something to gain out of Hakuryuu’s plan, too. He wanted to know what the empire’s witch had done to have the life she had now. Obviously she was a siren, so how did she go from living in the depths of the sea to living a luxurious life as the empress of the largest human nation on the planet? He had to know. And he had to know if he and Hakuryuu’s mother were from the same part of the sea.

If he was similar to her, he wanted to know. If she had known his parents, he wanted to know.

Judar hadn’t actually met her yet and likely wouldn't for some time. Hakuryuu said that he could meet her the next time he had an audience with the emperor. Attendants had every right to follow their liege to listen. It was really a convenient position. Judar even had the clothes to show he was an attendant - it was bright red, a little loose like a robe, and without pants Judar was more comfortable than in any other thing he had tried wearing. The best part was that since it almost touched the floor he didn’t have to wear shoes.

When they did have an audience, Judar would know for sure. He would see her rukh and how much magoi she had and know. Humans couldn’t see the rukh, but sirens could. So she would probably know just as soon that Judar wasn’t human. But he didn’t think she would say anything. If it was okay to be a siren in Kou, it wouldn’t just be a rumor that she was from the sea. And if it was okay then the market wouldn’t sell siren scales as luxury jewelry.

For a siren, giving a scale to someone was a show of the ultimate love and loyalty. Having the scales taken from your carcass and sold to humans was the ultimate defiling, the biggest horror of land. It didn’t matter as long as he didn’t have a tail, though. The only way to get a scale off of Judar was to kill him. When his body ran out of magoi the magic would wear off and he would have a tail once again. It was annoying knowing that no matter what he did, at the end of his life he would be a siren once again. But there was a long time to wait until then.

He was planning to make the best of it, even with the risks.


	6. Chapter 6

For working as Hakuryuu’s retainer, Judar was given money. Not by Hakuryuu directly, but by someone whose entire job was to hand out money to those employed by the palace and the surrounding district. It sounded like an awfully boring life. He supposed not all humans had the same resolve as Hakuryuu. Maybe it was natural that some only amounted to boring day jobs.

Judar wasn’t sure what to do with his paycheck until he accompanied Kougyoku to the market with full pockets. She was in a good mood because her oldest brother Kouen was scheduled to return in the evening from the west. Even so, she doubted that she would get to see him.

So instead of talking about him more and making herself jealous of her older brothers who would be able to see him and even speak with him as family, she was talking about some beauty routine or other. It had to do with pheasant feathers and sounded absolutely ridiculous.

“By the way, Judar, what do you do for your hair? It always looks so soft.”

“Yours will never be this soft. You’re too old.”

“How rude! I’m only nineteen.”

“Nineteen and you look like that? You need all the help you can get. Maybe I should tell you after all.”

“S, spit it out already!”

Judar closed his eyes and forced a serious expression. “See… it’s actually a lot of work. You probably don’t have the determination to go through with it.”

“I do! If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have asked you for advice!”

“Ever seen a hagfish?”

Kougyoku thought for a second. She was really searching her memory for it, eyebrows scrunched up in concentration. Judar had to force himself to not laugh at her face. “I haven’t,” she finally answered.

“Well, they live in kinda deep water. You might be able to ask a fisherman for one. Anyway, they make this slime. It looks gross but it does wonders for your hair.” Judar flipped his long braid over his shoulder. Kougyoku stared at it jealously. She was so gullible.

Of course, hagfish slime didn’t really make hair look good. He knew because he tried it before because Yunan said it would work wonders and it was really embarrassing and hard to get all the slime out. It felt good being the one who knew how idiotic the whole thing was instead of being the one who was getting tricked for once.

Well, Titus fell for them every now and then too. But Kougyoku wouldn't laugh it off as easily. So it was more fun to trick her. 

“My lady,” a woman from a jewelry stall called to Kougyoku, “would you like to try on one of our accessories?”

Kougyoku always tried to dress a little less like a princess when they were out, but she was still clearly highborn - it was impossible not to notice with her make-up covered face. Merchants noticed the money right away and always gave their full pitch to her.

Kougyoku smiled and tried a jade accessory on. The woman at the stall oohed and ahhed at how good she looked. It kind of clashed with her regular hair pin and it was clear that every complement she got was just flattery. Judar looked at the stall’s other goods as the shop owner tried to tempt Kougyoku into buying the accessory.

A hand mirror caught his attention. He picked it up and tilted it to look at his face. The strange sensation of seeing his own face would never get old. The surface glinted in the light and caught the shop owner’s attention.

“Sir, I see you have good taste! You can make sure you always look your best with that mirror!”

He tilted the mirror again. The light it reflected was enough to make him squint. His face looked weird when he squinted. 

Since he had nothing else to spend his money on, he ended up buying the mirror. Kougyoku bought the accessory, too. She was the kind of person who was always trying to update her looks to the point that she ended up trying too hard and never looked any better.

Another stall was filled with siren scales in different shades of orange, all clearly from the same person. They must have had a weak borg to fall prey to humans so easily - a look at the middle aged stall owner confirmed it. He listed the exuberant price for one in a gruff voice, but didn’t bother to explain their rarity and beauty. That much was could be seen with ease.

"Give 'em to your lover," he said. "Old siren legend says you'll never part again if you do."

Judar frowned while Kougyoku smiled.

"How romantic," she said in a dreamy voice. "I wonder if anyone will ever give one to me."

He didn't trust himself to comment on sirens. He made a show out of getting distracted by the smell of food.

Judar ate street food for dinner with Kougyoku. First it was some skewered chicken. The meat was a little overcooked and dry. Hakuryuu could probably make the same thing but better.

“This is gross,” he complained. “Wasn’t even worth the two huang.”

“We can get dessert too. Look, here’s some!”

The dessert was better. It was sweet and chewy.

“What’s in it?” Judar asked.

Kougyoku’s puzzled expression told Judar that it was common knowledge. “Oh, I forgot that you aren’t from Rakushou. It’s sweet rice. If you crush it then it turns into this. Ka Koubun told me that they make it at home where he’s from out in the country.”

“That guy’s not from here? What the hell, he shouldn’t pretend like he’s my boss then. He acts like he’s all important, but he’s really just a country hick?” It was surprising that the dessert was rice, too. He didn’t normally like it much but it was fine with another texture.

Kougyoku giggled, covering her mouth with her sleeve. “He just scored high on the national exams. What about you?”

How he came to Rakushou. It was difficult to come up with a story that was enough of a truth to satisfy both Hakuryuu and Kougyoku. But he didn’t think Kougyoku was that smart. Even if he said he was from an underwater human city where they breathed bubbles and rode sharks she’d probably believe it if he said it with complete confidence. But if he said that and it made it back to Hakuryuu, there was a small chance that he would put things together and regain some of his fading suspicion.

And he couldn’t tell anyone that he was supposedly Torran, either. Hakuryuu was very clear that the first prince would never leave him alone if he did that. And it was embarrassing to just say that Hakuryuu saved him from freezing to death in the rain. So he had to pull parts from several different stories to make it work.

“My village was tiny and boring. So I left. And now I’m here.”

“What about your parents?”

Judar’s eye twitched. Of course she asked the most annoying question first. “What do you care? That kind of stuff doesn’t really matter.”

Kougyoku’s expression fell. “You left your family to come here?”

“There’s all these different kinds of food here. No one to nag either, unless you count Hakuryuu. And there’s way more to do than in that cramped old place. Don’t see why I wouldn’t have left.”

Kougyoku never talked about what she and her family did together. She probably wasn’t really in contact with any of them. If she was lonely about her own family, it made sense that she was so quick to trust Judar and why she seemed so down that he didn’t want to live in his ‘home.’

Despite that their views on family were clearly different, Kougyoku didn’t argue with him. That annoyed Judar more than if she would have.

Hakuryuu really was better than her.

By the time they returned to the palace the sun was starting to set. The hottest season was just beginning to fade away and the sun was setting sooner every day. The palace was especially busy as servants and chefs scurried through the halls to prepare all the meals that the royal family desired.

Judar had already eaten and didn’t bother to stop someone to make them cook for him as well. He wasn’t royalty but rumors of him being favored by the forth prince got him whatever he wanted easily, especially from the older staff. If the castle’s younger chefs were certain that Hakuryuu was the fabled fourth prince, they didn’t show it. He always cooked his own meals, after all - Judar hadn’t figured out if it was paranoia, stubbornness, or a genuine love for cooking that kept him fending for himself.

The thought that Hakuryuu found any reason to do chores himself, as a prince, didn’t fit with the rest of the information that Judar had gathered about royalty. Hell, Judar didn’t even do chores. Hakuryuu’s status was really a joke.

The palace was busier than usual. Normally he expected to pass only a few servants and guards. Seeing almost twenty soldiers on his walk back to Hakuryuu’s room was unusual. Unable to ignore his curiosity, Judar stopped one. “Hey, what’s up?”

The soldier didn’t recognize him, but he was young and easy to talk to. He held his hands together in front of his chest and dipped his head politely. “Sir. Prince Kouen has returned with the soldiers from the western campaign.”

Judar hummed. He still had some time to kill. Might as well see what kind of big shot Kouen was, and if he really deserved that impressive reputation of his.

It was easy enough to follow the stream of soldiers back to their origin. Just from listening to their chatter on the way he learned that Kouen wasn’t home often from his expeditions into the west, only returning after major milestones to meet with his father the emperor. He was deeply admired by the soldiers.

Judar found the formation at the far west end of the palace. A person who could have only been Kouen was speaking to the troops. But it was getting late and his speech seemed to be almost over already.

“Get back to your families for the night. Be sure to cherish this time - there’s no one in this world who can replace your family. Be back here in high spirits by dawn. The east has been united thanks to our efforts, and with more hard work, the rest of the continent will be one!”

The soldiers shouted back enthusiastically. They all really believed in his words and their rukh was buzzing around in accomplishment. It was all so much noise that Judar had to cover his ears in an attempt to dim the sound.

After the cheer, soldiers walked back through the palace in an orderly fashion. If Kouen’s speech was anything to go by, they would be enjoying themselves with their families for a night. Judar stepped farther into the courtyard to avoid getting swept up in the soldier’s path.

“You,” the voice that had just finished giving a speech boomed. “Tell me your position.”

Judar turned his attention back to Kouen, annoyed to find he was the one being spoken to. Kouen walked closer until they were only several feet away.

“…Isn’t it disrespectful of you to be plugging your ears while I speak to you?”

“If you don’t want me to then talk quieter!”

Kouen stared. Judar hadn’t considered how much more important he was than Hakuryuu or Kougyoku, only that he was royalty born a little earlier. Too late to take it back now, anyway. 

“You’re pretty rude for new staff,” Kouen said.

Judar rolled his eyes. “Fire me then.”

Luckily, Kouen’s face broke into a smile. “You’ve got guts. But you really don’t need them right now. You weren’t here the last time I was. Tell me your position.”

With the soldiers mostly gone, Judar was able to take in his surroundings. The ground was bare and trampled from military drills. Behind Kouen, several men watched him with sharp eyes. They were most likely his retainers.

“…Hakuryuu’s retainer.”

“Retainer? He dismissed all of his retainers after the fire.”

The men behind Kouen rested their hands on their weapons. They didn’t buy it for a second.

“Look, if you think I’m so suspicious then you can just ask him. But I really am his retainer.”

“Stupid choice for a lie,” one of Kouen’s men spat.

“Lord Kouen. I can verify with Lord Koumei if this is the truth, if you wish,” another said.

Kouen nodded and the shortest of the men left. Judar watched him go. He was starting to regret this. Hakuryuu would be pissed when word got to him that he’d met Kouen.

“Can I go now?” Judar asked. “I just came to see what all the soldiers were doing.”

Kouen stared. He didn’t look away every so often like others did. He just stared. It might have been meant to intimidate him or it might have been an authority thing. Judar wasn’t sure. “If it’s the truth that Hakuryuu decided you were a suitable retainer for him, I believe I should know why. Perhaps you would be a more suitable retainer for me.”

Judar gritted his teeth. Kouen was sharp. But he shouldn’t doubt Judar’s acting skills. 

He took a deep breath, smiled leisurely and stretched his arms. He still had the bag from shopping with Kougyoku. It would be useful in proving his point. “Nah. I’m just his type.”

One of Kouen’s retainers broke out laughing and was promptly elbowed. 

“What’s in the bag?” The more serious retainer asked.

Judar handed it over easily.

“A mirror, some sweets, and a comb… If he’s telling the truth, then perhaps Hakuryuu takes after Lord Hakuren more than we thought.”

Kouen might have smiled at that comment. Or maybe it was a scowl. It was hard to tell with that face. Either way, Judar was given his bag back.

“If you’re telling the truth, Hakuryuu shouldn’t be assigning lovers positions in the palace,” Kouen said. “Leave us.”

Judar sighed and left the way he came. He couldn’t tell if Kouen really didn’t have any idea about Hakuryuu’s personality, or if he knew Hakuryuu reasonably well and still thought his story was possible. Maybe Hakuryuu was actually a total sap deep down and Judar was the only one who didn’t know. He shook the image out of his head. He needed to be thinking of something to say to Hakuryuu now. It wasn’t the time to get distracted.

Even if Hakuryuu got mad about how he handled it, there was nothing he could do about it now. It had been the easiest way out of his conversation with Kouen. And it was for Hakuryuu’s own sake that he was viewed as a stupid and frivolous prince than one with a magician and plans to take the throne. 

…Still, Kouen assuming that they were lovers with his limited evidence was a funny thought. Sirens didn’t take more than one lover in their lives. It’d be impossibly lucky if he found someone at his age when most waited until they were hundreds of years old to find someone they loved. That was just how things were. It’d be impossibly unlucky if he fell for a human, too. Unlucky and strange. That was also just how things were.

Compared to sirens, humans had a different idea of love. From what he understood, some humans practiced love without loyalty. And there was sex without love. Prostitutes were those who gave sex without love and concubines gave love without the need for loyalty. The very thought of an imperial concubine made Judar feel a little sick. Shop owners and laborers seemed to follow a similar model to sirens, though. It was only royalty that took many lovers and wives.

It was strange to think about Hakuryuu as his lover in the first place. He couldn’t think of Hakuryuu as an equal to himself, a siren, since Hakuryuu was nothing but a short-lived existence. A human.

The human world was a siren’s dollhouse. It made no sense to consider one of its inhabitants as a romantic partner past the exploration of human feelings. It was absolutely temporary by the nature of their lifespans, and that made it easy.

Well, that didn’t matter. What mattered was the present.

And in the present he had some serious nagging to deal with. Judar caught Hakuryuu on the way back to his room. They didn’t normally meet in the halls this time of day and Judar was cursing his luck. He wanted to wait a little longer before telling him about how it went with Kouen.

Hakuryuu seemed exhausted already. “Judar,” he mumbled in greeting. His eyes settled on his bag.

Judar took out the unopened case of sweets he bought in town. “For you. Since you don’t get out much.”

“…Thank you?” He seemed dubious, to say the least.

“What, you don’t like sweets?”

“N, no, it’s fine. I appreciate it. I was just surprised.” Hakuryuu’s rukh fluttered and chirped as he picked at the packaging. When Hakuryuu confirmed that there were really sweets inside his serious expression dissipated. He almost looked touched.

Did he not receive gifts often? That must be it. His reaction was cute and unexpected.

Judar tore his eyes from Hakuryuu’s face. If he didn’t talk about Kouen now he would just make Hakuryuu suspicious. And that really wasn’t his intention.

“I met Kouen,” he said. “Because I wanted to see what the soldiers were doing and all. He didn’t believe me when I said you hired me.”

Hakuryuu froze. It looked like Kouen was the cause of today’s stress. “What did you say to him?”

Judar shrugged. “Does it matter? What matters is that he seemed convinced that I’m just here because I’m easy on the eyes. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”

“It’s not ideal. But I can work with it.” Hakuryuu sighed. "You've really done a number on my reputation, you know that?”

“Better than your true goal getting out.”

“…True.”

That incident seemed to change something about Hakuryuu’s attitude towards him. One of his main worries was that Kouen might discover the “truth.” Not the real truth, but the one Hakuryuu believed - that he was from a small Torran village, and only ended up in Rakushou through careless and uninformed travelling.

Now Hakuryuu didn’t have to worry about that anymore. Kouen had met Judar, heard what he had to say, and most likely listened to the rumors from his brothers and their retainers. It was enough to dispel the thought that it might be part of a plan. After all, every rumor Judar had heard was the same: that he was a handsome young man intent on using his looks to charm his way into richness. With such an unanimous opinion, the palace grew bored of him as a topic and moved on to newer gossip.

If Hakuryuu were someone else, how Judar handled Kouen and the rest of the palace might have been enough to gain his trust. But it wasn’t. His groundwork wasn’t good enough.

The story of how he came to Rakushou was sketchy at best. He was sure that Hakuryuu had thought it was sketchy from the beginning. But being fluent in Torran and the fact that Judar likely would have died in the cold without Hakuryuu’s help was enough to convince him that there was an element of truth in it all. He allowed Hakuryuu to assume that he was content to trade killing his mother for warm baths and a soft bed, luxuries that didn't exist where he was from. Hakuryuu never gave any indication that he was content with that explanation, but didn't ask outright for a better one, either.

When he lined up the facts, the situation didn’t seem favorable for either of them. It was enough to create some element of distance.

It was distance that Judar could do without. But it was strange. The arrangement worked better in reality than it did in theory. Their personalities meshed well, as did their motivations. 

Earning trust was slow. Judar never wanted anyone’s trust before and had never gone through the motions. It wasn’t that he was getting impatient. But he did wonder what Hakuryuu was like when he really trusted someone.

As days passed, the wind brought a cold breeze from far away. It cooled the air and Judar was just as amazed by cold days as hot days. Every day was different. The difference could be soothing or annoying, but what mattered was that they were different. Every day he would wake up to something new and experience something new, whether it was the first yellowing trees or autumn’s new fashion trends.

Even the sunset looked different depending on if there were clouds or birds and the amount of stray rukh from the sea and wind. Sometimes it even seemed to be a different color for no reason. How could the sun set in pink one day and orange in another?

Despite the color of the setting sun, the sky always turned blue-black by nightfall. Stars stretched across in strange patterns and colors, like clouds made of lights. Judar still didn’t understand why the stars could stay floating by themselves, unmoving, when the weight of the sky was enough to hold him to the ground. The more he learned about the surface the stranger it seemed.

Judar went back to Hakuryuu’s room every night at around the time Hakuryuu would be back - in the late evening, when the sky was dark but not black. He couldn’t help but think it was the best time of the day.

Judar couldn’t enter Hakuryuu’s room when he wasn’t there because he locked it after his first lesson. So he always came after he thought Hakuryuu would be in. Today, he was - and had even left his door unlocked in waiting for Judar. It was a step forward, even if it was a small step.

Hakuryuu was reading a paper on his desk and didn’t look up when Judar entered. Not liking to be ignored, Judar walked over to see what Hakuryuu had.

“A letter from my sister,” he said. “It seems like it’s going well out there in the plains.”

“Why don’t you join her?”

“I don’t have the combat experience to get the request approved.”

Judar hummed his acknowledgement. Hakuryuu sounded down. 

Hakuryuu folded up the letter and placed it in a drawer in his desk. “I’ll write a reply tomorrow.” He stood, stretched, and moved to sit on his bed.

Judar followed. He didn’t have any siblings. They weren’t that common in the ocean. Really, there wasn’t enough food where the sun couldn’t reach for everyone to have a large family. And unlike the others, he had never met his real parents. It was enough that the subject of a happy and whole family annoyed him. But it wasn’t like he didn’t understand if Hakuryuu was feeling alone.

“Kougyoku mentioned you the other day,” Hakuryuu said. "We never spoke until you came here, but lately she says hello every now and then."

Judar didn’t respond. Instead he curled up at Hakuryuu’s back, bringing an arm around to hold onto him. It was something he only started doing recently: as the temperature cooled each day, he was drawn closer. The warmth of Hakuryuu's back was the most comfortable place in the room. Hakuryuu never told him to stop until he wanted to go to sleep, often shooing Judar to the couch. So it was fine until then.

“She seemed surprised that you liked me so much. I’m surprised, too.”

“…Why?”

“That’s what I want to know.”

“I just do,” Judar said. “You’re my favorite.”

Hakuryuu turned to face him. Though there were several layers of fabric between them, he could feel Hakuryuu’s warmth with ease. “I haven’t done anything.”

As a human, there was nothing he could say to that. Hakuryuu had no idea just how much he changed Judar’s life for the better. It was impossible for him to know. For Hakuryuu to understand, Judar would have to become a siren in his eyes - show him his tail, choke on the human language, admit just how little he knew about everything on land. Show him that he couldn’t have ever pretended to be human without Hakuryuu. So Judar couldn’t say anything even if he wanted to.

All that he could do was relax against him and show Hakuryuu that even if the rest of the palace didn't trust him with anything, Judar did.

They weren’t lovers. The pervasive assumption that they were was useful only as a cover for Hakuryuu’s real intentions.

But if they were lovers in the human sense of the word, Judar wouldn’t mind.

He wanted to show Hakuryuu that. But he wasn’t sure how. For a siren, relaxing together like this was something of a romantic gesture. He wasn’t sure if it came across as such to humans.

Judar fell asleep against him easily.

It was nice and all until Hakuryuu woke him up trying to get ready and they got into an argument at the crack of dawn that lasted long enough for Hakuryuu to be late for his morning training, which he was sure to complain about to Judar later.

He just rolled his eyes. No less than two days later did Hakuryuu let Judar curl up at his side for the night again.

For how often Hakuryuu normally had nightmares, he didn't have them quite as often if he didn’t sleep alone.

Practicing magic became more difficult in the cool weather. Though Judar was told it was only the beginning of autumn, if it could even be considered autumn yet, he was sure it couldn’t get much colder. The cold sea breeze and lack of protection from the elements under the trees made Judar want to skip out on practicing more often than not. But he stuck with it.

All it took was switching from ice magic to thunder magic to warm up. Warmer, yes, but thunder left a tingling sensation in his hands that he didn't remember it ever doing before. He tried to ignore it.

It was probably just because there wasn’t much static in the cloudy sky. He’d give it a few days.

On his way back from training, Judar saw a couple with locked mouths on a doorstep and stopped to stare.

They noticed him and parted immediately, scowling.

Judar thought maybe they were 'kissing.' That was something humans who loved each other did. He heard about it in gossip—“did you know, I caught my daughter kissing the pottery boy!” That was the kind of gossip that he used to hear flying around the servants' ranks all the time back when he had to wear brown and they'd openly share their gossip with him.

It was definitely a romantic gesture. Humans had so many feelings that they couldn’t express themselves simply by laying with each other. They had to be closer. So close that it had to be suffocating. So close that it looked desirable.

He wondered if Hakuryuu would push him away if he tried it. He didn’t think he would. But he wasn’t sure. He just didn’t know Hakuryuu well enough to say so with certainty.

When he next saw Hakuryuu he was surprised to see a bright leaf stuck to the back of his shirt. He removed it curiously.

Hakuryuu frowned at it. “This time of year they seem to get everywhere.”

“Did you go in the gardens or something?”

“…Yes. I haven’t been in awhile, so I thought I’d pay it a visit while there are still flowers.”

“Didn't know you ever went there.”

“Not lately. I’ve been busy.” Hakuryuu paused. “My sister and I used to go often.”

Judar was pretty sure he wasn’t any busier than normal. Still, he left to spend some time in the gardens the next day out of curiosity.

The air was warmer than it had been recently and storm clouds peered over the sky’s edge, having replaced the fluffy clouds from earlier. The imperial gardens were large. Much larger than all the courtyards combined. But they were empty.

No waterfowl remained. They must have gone somewhere warmer. Even the summer cicadas lay dead on the ground.

Did Hakuryuu really come to such a place often? It was unwelcoming despite the few late-blooming flowers. Only the royal family and their retainers were permitted to enter, and as such, it was completely empty. It wasn’t peaceful at all. Not to Judar, at least.

Judar was glad to leave it for the palace proper. The imperial gardens hadn’t been so depressing in the summer when they were filled with life and he’d visited with Hakuryuu as part of his tour of the palace. But he didn’t think it was a very good place to spend time now.

Come to think of it, they’d been the only people in the gardens back then too. Humans were strange to spend so much effort making such a beautiful place that so few people were allowed to step foot in.

However, if Hakuryuu’s sister used to accompany him, it might not have been so bad. Maybe she always brought her retainer, too. They sounded close when Hakuryuu spoke of them. They probably enjoyed sitting in the pavilion together, sipping tea or eating desserts Hakuryuu made.

It wouldn't be such a bad place if there were peaceful memories like that in it. But Hakuei had been gone on her expedition for nearly a year now. Hakuryuu’s only communication with her was a letter once every few months to let him know that she was alive and doing well.

Hakuryuu probably had plenty of time to go to the gardens and think of the past. Instead he chose to work hard for his revenge and then wait in his room daily for Judar.

Judar didn't know what to do with that knowledge. It filled him with an unfamiliar feeling that was difficult to process. He wanted to kiss Hakuryuu, if only because it was something humans were supposed to do when they felt how he did now.

It wasn’t difficult to find time to. Not when Hakuryuu let him get under the same covers and lay close.

That was how they’d been spending many nights lately. Sleeping under the same covers without acknowledging it.

Hakuryuu didn’t say anything even when Judar stared. He looked tired. He'd been like that since Hakuei’s letter arrived.

Judar wasn’t sure what to say. He was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to just tell Hakuryuu he wanted to kiss him and to stay still so he could do so. When he really thought about it, it was a weird thing to have gotten stuck in his head. People ate with their mouths. Putting one on his own was weird. But he and Hakuryuu were always eating the same food anyway, so as weird as it sounded, he didn’t think it’t be unpleasant in theory.

Unsure of what to say, he said the first thing that came to mind: “Your hair’s all messed up.” And it was. It always looked a little messy after he took his hair down for the day. Not necessarily bad, but very different from the neat appearance he tried to maintain during the day.

“Obviously. Do you expect it to look perfect even after I've gotten into bed?” Hakuryuu asked. Despite his words, he ran a hand through it self consciously.

Judar laughed. Hakuryuu was pretty weak to criticism, wasn’t he? He batted Hakuryuu's hand away and fixed it with his own. “There,” he said. “Much better.”

He didn't remove his hand from the back of Hakuryuu’s head. Hakuryuu looked especially nice in the dim light, shadows from the lamp and his scars working well with his even features.

He wanted to kiss him. Just to try it.

Judar angled Hakuryuu's head towards himself. Before their lips met Hakuryuu tilted his face as well, just a little.

It was Judar’s first kiss, of course. Their noses bumped. Hakuryuu’s lips were warm just like the rest of him was warm. Since Judar had only seen that innocent kiss on the street from lovers greeting each other, he didn't linger.

It sort of felt like his heart was beating inside of his throat when he pulled away. Hakuryuu’s gaze didn't linger - he didn't pull Judar closer or push him away. Then he blinked and looked to Judar's lips and his red face. He looked like he was expecting something more.

“Was that your first kiss?” Hakuryuu asked. Though he had been in a bad mood earlier, it didn’t really show through his words. Maybe being kissed had even improved his mood a little. At the very least, it woke him up.

“I guess,” Judar said.

Hakuryuu smiled meanly. “How old are you again?”

“H, hey! It’s not that! Kissing doesn’t even exist in my village!”

“Uh huh…”

“It really doesn’t! You brat!”

Hakuryuu laughed. They were close enough that Judar could feel his hot breath. His traitorous rukh fluttered to the quick sound of his heart, so close to Hakuryuu that if they were real birds he would have felt them.

It was something of a trial run with a human who didn’t know him.

The person that had just kissed Hakuryuu could hardly be considered Judar himself. Not if he was looking at it from Hakuryuu's point of view. It was more like he'd kissed him as a character in one of those famous royal plays. He'd take off his stage make-up and become himself again only when Hakuryuu exited the scene.

So it didn’t make sense that he felt charmed by the feeling of their lips together. Because he wasn’t kissing Hakuryuu as himself but as his 'human' retainer. The land must have some kind of magic of its own to generate so many strong feelings within him in such a short amount of time.

Hakuryuu held Judar’s face in his hands for a moment. It felt weird and it was embarrassing. Hakuryuu looked satisfied with Judar’s embarrassed face and kissed him softly, with his lips slightly parted. When he pulled away, Judar was speechless. He was pretty sure he had what humans called a crush if a few seconds was enough to make him feel like that. Unusual for a siren to feel for a human, yes, but not unheard of. Hadn't he come to the land to have new experiences in the first place?

“That’s how it’s done,” Hakuryuu said. Judar didn't know if he wanted to pull him closer again or push him off the bed to wipe that smug expression off his face.

He was conflicted in those simple ways and conflicted in that he knew he couldn't make sure his robe was covering his gills too obviously or Hakuryuu would grow suspicious.

He was too excited to sleep. Hakuryuu was too, for a time. They talked about anything that came to mind, from the past to the future.

For the first time Judar told him the little things he remembered from the sea. Without saying that it all happened a few thousand feet below the ocean, Judar told stories of Titus and Aladdin, and a little about Scheherazade too. It was weird. Judar had wanted nothing more than to get away from them as soon as possible, but now thinking of them was a little nostalgic. They were all in the cage of the sea, just as curious of the land as Judar had been - especially Titus. He wondered if Titus had followed him.

The candle from Hakuryuu’s desk burned out. It looked like the ocean when it was so dark. But there was nothing in the ocean as warm as Hakuryuu laying so close.

In return Hakuryuu talked about happy times with his brothers who weren’t alive anymore. The human life was short and full of turmoil, after all. He talked about his sister and her horrible taste in all sorts of things. It sounded like it had been a happy family once long ago. Talking about the way things had been seemed to solidify Hakuryuu’s resolve once again.

“I’ll kill them,” Hakuryuu said. “Everyone who let that happen.”

Judar remembered Hakuryuu’s words from in front of the painting of his mother. If Hakuryuu was planning on throwing his life away by letting himself be taken prisoner for treason, Judar didn’t want that. He was sure of it now. He didn’t know how long it would take to find another human as interesting as Hakuryuu, so he couldn’t have him being locked up or executed while he still had the will to fight.

“Hey, Hakuryuu. I’ll help you become king. I’ll fight a whole army for you to have the throne.”

Hakuryuu smiled bashfully. “If that’s what you want, I have no objections.”

Soon after, Hakuryuu fell asleep. Judar stayed awake a little longer listening to Hakuryuu’s soft breathing and the never silent world above water. He combed his hands through Hakuryuu’s hair absentmindedly. He wondered if anyone else in the palace had seen him like this, sleeping with his sword just far enough out of reach to be useless.

Probably not. Hakuryuu didn't have anyone else. Then again, neither did Judar.

They weren’t lovers. But it wouldn’t hurt to kiss or hold each other every now and then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for most of ancient china's history, gay lovers were a very common and accepted part of society so i've written it as such. i especially like the stories of a duke planting a handsome man in a rival's court to give bad advice and the one that makes half-eaten peaches a gay symbol. very fitting i love it


	7. Chapter 7

Judar was happy with their new arrangement. Holding and being held by someone was a feeling he’d never known in the sea. Hakuryuu only agreed to it when he was in the mood for it, though. Most of the time Judar still slept on the couch.

Once Hakuryuu went to sleep, at times Judar liked to stay up longer. If Hakuryuu didn’t blow out the oil lamp before he lay down, he liked to play with his mirror in the dim light.

Of course, if he really wanted to he could just make more light. It didn’t take up that much magoi; small lights were completely incomparable to body altercation magic. But it wasn’t worth it. So he just played with the mirror until the fire went out.

Hakuryuu thought that it was a strange hobby. “I have never known anyone to be so infatuated with their own face,” he said.

“You’d do the same thing if you were me,” Judar said. He fully expected it to go over Hakuryuu's head, but it was the truth. Anyone seeing their body for the first time would be like this. Probably.

“I have better things to do than look at you all day.”

“But if you didn’t.”

“…Go to sleep, Judar.”

He would just laugh and go back to looking at his mirror. If Hakuryuu really thought it was weird he would just blow out the fire before laying down to sleep. It was funny sometimes how dishonest his words were when his rukh was so ready to tell Judar anything. 

Those were normal days. On the days he slept with Hakuryuu, he often woke up to him getting out of bed for the morning. With his hair messy from sleeping and his eyes tired and dry, Hakuryuu didn’t look as good in the morning as Judar had thought a month or two ago.

If he wrapped his arms around Hakuryuu and tried to get him to stay longer, they would get into an early morning argument. If Judar was tired enough to prefer sleeping over fighting, Hakuryuu would silently get ready as usual.

They weren’t a ‘thing’ outside of evenings together in bed. In the mornings and in the palace, they didn’t really touch each other. It was only in the evenings after a long day that Hakuryuu would accept Judar’s affection. That was where they stood.

Judar usually spent the rest of his time alone. He had to be, of course, or it was impossible to train.

As much as he was improving, using magic was beginning to feel strange. His limbs often felt numb after casting spells long - it wasn't just thunder magic that did it anymore, if it had ever been. It was whatever he was practicing. It was mildly worrying, but more than that it made him want to slam his arms into a tree.

He didn’t let it affect his training. With floating and flying mastered, it was easy to forget that he used to be stuck inside the constricting gray of the ocean. He wouldn’t fall back in just because his body felt strange.

In the pit of his stomach, he knew the cause. He just didn’t want to think about it.

After training, he always climbed up his favorite willow tree’s shorter branches to relax. With his heavy clothes it was a pain to climb when he knew he could just use gravity magic to get up. Or he could even use magic to lay on the roof - he was much less likely to get splinters up there. But it was a courtyard that anyone could pass by. It would be stupid to use magic. So he climbed up it the same as always.

At the other side of the courtyard, the peach tree had already stopped bearing fruit for the year. Hakuryuu said that next year in the spring it would have fruit again. Without fail, he said. The tree had been there since he could remember.

Judar wasn’t so sure. The human world had many short-lived things. If the tree had already been there since Hakuryuu could remember, it was at least around his age.

Judar didn’t know how old Hakuryuu was, but his best guess was that he was younger. But not much younger than Judar himself. Hakuryuu looked like an adult in every respect. Judar had grown quickly and reached his full body size by the time he was sixteen. He couldn’t imagine that Hakuryuu was that young, though. Titus was sixteen and almost as much of a pipsqueak as Aladdin.

But the twenty years of Judar’s life held a lot less meaning than the time Hakuryuu had already used. Humans didn’t even live for a century, shorter still if something were to happen.

For what it was worth Hakuryuu did realize that the time he could get revenge was a short window. He was a healthy adult and waiting past then was only a waste of time. So something would happen soon.

As Judar understood, the emperor was in poor health. It might have just been a rumor, but he found himself practicing double for it anyway. If the emperor died it was likely that his son the first prince would take the throne. Judar had no interest in Kouen. The one who should have the throne was Hakuryuu who had suffered in his desire for taking the country back.

Hakuryuu had mentioned that his right to the throne was based on his lineage - that as the sole living son of the first emperor, the throne was more of his than Kouen’s. That it was a right of his birth and he was a more suitable emperor than anyone else in Kou because of it. That was bullshit, of course. Hakuryuu was probably just as aware of that as Judar was. Part of what made it fun was that it was so ridiculous. Kouen actually wanted to rule the whole world fairly? What a joke.

They were humans. They were meant to fight. So it was fine if Judar encouraged them to do so. Not good, no - it was the kind of thing Scheherazade would chide him for if she were there, saying that he should be more gentle with humans just as she used to say he needed to be more gentle with his shells and other toys. But it was fine.

Pretending that he was doing the right thing by helping Hakuryuu was laughable. He was just having fun at Hakuryuu’s side, and trying to piece things together for his own sake. What happened to the others who might get involved in it like Kougyoku and Kouha meant nothing to him.

They were just humans, after all. Fragile and easily squishable, almost like bugs. If they would be unhappy with Hakuryuu’s revenge or not didn’t matter much to Judar. He was only there to lend power to Hakuryuu.

Kouha brought it up on the day Judar noticed the first brown leaves on the peach tree.

“Hakuryuu isn’t planning anything, is he?” Kouha asked.

Judar didn’t bother to justify the question with an answer.

“Even if he is, he doesn’t have the power to accomplish anything. All he’s gonna do is get himself executed,” Kouha said.

Judar met Kouha’s eyes and tried to keep himself from smiling. Ah, he couldn’t do it. Kouha returned his smile with an annoyed look.

“What are you even gaining by helping him? My brothers are much better. Just forget about Hakuryuu and whatever it is he’s trying to do already.”

“It’s not like he has any power, right? Just let the powerless forth prince struggle until he burns out,” Judar said. “I mean, what’s he gonna do? Study aggressively?”

Kouha seemed satisfied with his answer. “Alright. I was just worried you might actually believe in him.” Kouha tapped his sword to the ground a couple of times, making sure he didn’t lose Judar’s attention. “If you’re bored and need someone to believe in, believe in my brother Kouen. He’s the person this world needs. Not Hakuryuu.”

“I’m sure he is,” Judar said. But it didn’t really matter even if Kouen could make the would spin backwards. All that mattered was that Hakuryuu was interesting, the human who he wanted to watch the most. Not Kouen. He had it too easy, to the point that it was boring. First prince, successful general, and loved by all? There was nothing Judar could give him. But he had many things to offer Hakuryuu. He was all too happy to do so.

Despite Judar’s interest in Hakuryuu, it wasn’t returned on a personal level. Even though Hakuryuu thought they were equals as humans he kept his distance. He would awkwardly accept Judar’s attention without returning it. How many kisses had Judar given him to be met with nothing more than an unsure, almost guilty look?

It was fine, though. Judar understood that Hakuryuu’s emotions were being poured into his revenge so much that there weren’t any feelings left for him. Sometimes it was almost funny. Hakuryuu never calmed down enough to stop thinking about what he had to do long enough to think about if he wanted to go farther with Judar or not.

Usually Hakuryuu tried to not respond too much, passively allowing Judar to do anything he wanted. And he did.

Judar couldn’t get enough of holding onto him and kissing him. A little innocent kiss here and there had become normal for them. Long kisses at night, Judar’s lips moving from Hakuryuu’s mouth to his neck, were not so normal. Hakuryuu accepted them, though. It was fun seeing him squirm at the feeling.

It took awhile for Judar to figure out how kissing worked. There were lots of things he could do, from kissing Hakuryuu’s cheek to feeling the inside of his cheek with his tongue. Hakuryuu knew it was his first time doing all that. Sometimes he made fun of Judar’s unskilled attempts that got spit everywhere, and other times he curled closer, wanting closeness without having to look into Judar’s eyes.

Judar had to be careful. If Hakuryuu noticed his skin’s inhuman indentions in the candlelight, it would be over. Hiding everything was second nature by now, but there was always a risk in being so close.

The burn scars training down the left side of Hakuryuu’s neck felt like an invitation. Judar pushed the fabric of Hakuryuu’s clothes from his neck and kissed the dip to his shoulder experimentally. Hakuryuu could easily do the same to him and find out exactly what he was. But he wouldn’t.

“You’re enthusiastic today,” Hakuryuu noted. His breath was coming out a little ragged and Judar had never heard it sound like that before. He wanted to hear more of it so he didn’t forget the sound.

“I’m always enthusiastic,” Judar said between two longer kisses. He was getting a little bit of spit on Hakuryuu’s neck, but not as much as he used to. He was getting better at doing things that Hakuryuu had no complaints about. 

Judar wondered vaguely what it felt like - on his own neck, he nearly always had his choker. He didn’t know for sure if it was especially sensitive like his stomach and legs or if it wasn’t like his arms. It probably tickled to be kissed there, though.

Hakuryuu didn’t seem too ticklish. If he were then he would probably be laughing instead of breathing roughly. With his face red it was clear that he was doing something that was worth being embarrassed about. But Hakuryuu didn’t tell him off so it was probably still a normal human thing to do. His position was making it hard to reach some places he wanted to kiss, so Judar moved his body on top of Hakuryuu’s. He wasn't as soft as the bed.

“What does it feel like?” Judar asked. He put his mouth back on Hakuryuu’s neck, on the scars by his jawline, and closed his lips slowly like Hakuryuu had showed him. It was a proper kiss, just not on his lips.

“It’s… good.”

 _Good._ It was a vague word. As Judar kept going he noticed that sometimes Hakuryuu made little noises in response to his actions. He didn’t know what they meant but assumed they were a part of what was good.

Soon he figured out that Hakuryuu liked to be bit, too. Light biting, not so light sucking, and enthusiastic kissing. Hakuryuu liked it all. Some combinations earned him a content sigh and others a low sound from Hakuryuu’s throat.

Eventually Hakuryuu addressed him. “Judar,” he said, “that’s enough for today,” and tried to move Judar off.

Judar was about to protest but noticed that the lamp’s wick was low and Hakuryuu’s face was flushed and not at all angry. Instead of speaking he just watched Hakuryuu’s face as he pulled away.

Hakuryuu’s hair clung a little to the wet skin of his neck and his breathing still hadn’t returned to normal. “Go to sleep,” he said.

Judar shrugged to himself and got up, blew out the lamp, and went to the couch. It was far away enough that he couldn’t hear Hakuryuu’s breathing anymore, and it didn’t help that the couch was next to a window.

More than hearing how Hakuryuu sleeping at night, he always heard bugs chirping and flapping their little wings. An old servant told him before that bugs made such loud noises because they were looking for each other. Judar couldn’t imagine what bugs would want with each other. Too many of them in one place would be flat out obnoxious.

The crickets were always loudest when he slept so hearing them made Judar tired. In his half asleep state he remembered once when he was much younger, before Aladdin had been born and Titus was a little kid always getting into trouble exploring too far from home, Scheherazade telling a story about the bugs on the surface. Like crabs that sing to the moon, she said.

It was an overly romantic way to think of them, that was for sure. Crickets were just crickets. But when he was tired it was easy to remember how many times he had fallen asleep to her stories in the past. It worked within minutes to bring him into an equally deep sleep. The softness of the couch helped, of course.

Hakuryuu asked for his progress in training one night. Judar could have just said it was going well and leave it at that. But he wanted to brag about all the new kinds of magic he’d taught himself.

“Come see me practice sometime,” Judar said. “If you’re not too busy doing important prince things.”

Hakuryuu rolled his eyes. “You know I don’t have any important prince things to do. They leave that for the important princes.”

Judar laughed. “I can show you tomorrow then. I can do lots of cool things now.”

Hakuryuu agreed and the next day they set out for the shore.

Judar explained on the way that they had to go to the city’s outskirts first, and then he could use transfer magic. He’d never transferred more than just himself with it, but he was pretty sure it was just as easy as long as he didn't need to cast a larger circle. Hakuryuu trusted his magical skill enough to not ask.

At the edge of the city, too far into the forest to come across any humans, Judar cast his spell. In an instant they were by the sandy beach he’d first ended up on.

Judar would transfer them to the rocky beach he practiced at, but Yunan’s warning lingered in his head. Sometimes the area he transferred to was a little different from day to day, so it was better to aim for somewhere he couldn’t accidentally fall off a sheer cliff from not paying attention. He’d be fine with his borg, but it’d suck to send Hakuryuu off it accidentally.

He was pleased to see that Hakuryuu followed him through the transfer circle easily. But it was strange. It took up much more magoi to bring a human than it took to just bring himself.

Maybe it was because the surrounding rukh wasn't helping Hakuryuu through. He should have thought to order it to do so, really. At least he'd know better when returning.

From the sandy beach, Judar followed the edge until it turned to rocks and climbed to the most secluded place he could find in the area - back up to the cliff. Originally there had been trees pretty close to the edge but he'd cut them down months ago so there would be more room to practice. The cliff wasn’t for him today, though. It was for Hakuryuu to watch.

“I don’t really like the ocean,” was the first thing Hakuryuu said. He crossed his arms to his chest. Judar spent a few seconds trying to figure out what he was doing that for before he realized the ocean spray must be cold on his skin so late in the year. It was the first time Judar appreciated the long sleeves on his own clothes.

“I’ll make it quick,” Judar said. He had brought a staff. Though magic wasn't what it was intended for - it was apparently some kind of gardening tool, something Hakuryuu found pretty amusing - it was a good length and made of a durable metal that worked great for ordering the rukh around. And, most importantly, it looked cool. Magic was a better purpose for it than gardening would ever be.

He turned towards Hakuryuu and jumped off backwards, swinging the staff in an arc. Gravity magic. He’d worked hard on mastering it.

Once in the air Judar motioned to the water to come up and froze it in the air. Once frozen it was easier to command. He had it sharpen to spears and spin. He had always been best at ice magic. 

“From here it’s easy to impale someone,” Judar said. “But no h… no people come here so it’s kinda hard to practice the killing blow.” He turned the spears downwards and looked towards the sea. If he focused on the rukh he could see the flow of shallow schools of fish.

He turned towards the fish and brought his staff down to order the shards to follow. Once they were stabbed he brought the ice back up. 

“You used ice the first time you showed me, too,” Hakuryuu said.

“I can do more than ice,” Judar said. He dropped the ice and fish back in the ocean - it would be troublesome to carry such small fish back to the palace when there were probably sharks nearby looking for easy meals. Next up was thunder.

Since the sky was already cloudy it was easy enough to amplify the static and create a huge storm. He drew the lightning in a circle to hit the surface. It was strong enough to electrocute anything there, he was sure. Much stronger than he’d feel safe using underwater even with his sturdy borg.

Originally Judar had planned to keep the thunder going longer but he felt his stomach burn through his excitement. His magoi was low even though the rukh had been helping. They really weren’t very dependable for having nothing better to do, Judar thought bitterly as he took magoi from his choker. He never had the chance to use his magic at full power. There was never any target, no one to see, and he always had to conserve magoi. Just once he wanted to go all out.

Judar surveyed the forest behind Hakuryuu. If he set it on fire, he might accidentally wash Hakuryuu away trying to put it out. As funny as it might be, Hakuryuu would never let him hear the end of his clumsiness. So he directed his fire magic to the sky. It wasn’t really impressive without anything to burn, though.

“You need more targets,” Hakuryuu said.

“Yeah, there’s nothing out here. Real bummer.”

Despite his complaining, Judar created a tornado for his fire to spread it. A fire tornado over the ocean was definitely conspicuous, but there were no humans to see except for Hakuryuu.

“I can do light and sound magic too, but they aren’t very useful for fighting.”

“It looks like most things you can do would really make a mess out of the palace.”

Judar laughed. “It would be fun! Then they would really know who’s boss around here.”

Hakuryuu smiled. “I would be responsible for fixing it, though.”

Judar waved his hand. “Details, details.” He felt his a pang in his stomach again. Out of magoi. He took power from his jewelry once again. The longer he kept going, the higher the chance of him really running out and his magic wearing off was. Cursing his body, Judar decided to land next to Hakuryuu.

Hakuryuu looked at the sea absentmindedly while Judar stretched his legs out. They always felt strange and wobbly after being in the air. The numbness wasn't really helping his balance, either.

Once he finished stretching Judar thought Hakuryuu would immediately want to go back, but Hakuryuu stood staring at the sea.

“I wonder if it’s true that there’s siren blood in me,” he mumbled. “I would think I would long for the sea then.”

“Who says all sirens long for the sea?”

Hakuryuu met his eyes, urging him to explain. Judar turned back towards the sea. It was low tide but he didn’t think Hakuryuu was familiar enough with the shores to know that. “If your mom really is a siren, then by that logic she would still be in there. You probably wouldn’t even exist.”

“I guess so.”

Judar had scared off the seagulls with his magic but he could see them flying in the distance. It was still the middle of the day. They were probably waiting for things to calm down before eating all the fish he’d just killed. Meanwhile, Judar would be treated to a warm dinner. Keep eating carrion, seagulls. 

“I don’t understand why she would come here if that were the case,” Hakuryuu said. “And I don’t know how to fight a siren. I haven't been able to find much information on them and a lot of it conflicts.”

Judar almost offered information but caught himself before he said anything. It was risky enough just talking about sirens. Telling Hakuryuu anything that he couldn’t find in books could easily cause him trouble.

Hakuryuu sighed. “Why would someone like that interfere with Kou at all…”

…For as much as Judar wanted to keep his identity a secret, it was hard to not react to something like that. He turned away to the way they'd came so Hakuryuu couldn’t see his face. He didn’t know what kind of expression he was making. But it was definitely one that Hakuryuu didn’t need to see.

Hakuryuu followed without a word. They walked back to the sandy shore in silence. In no time, they were back at Rakushou’s outskirts.

Judar thought that he wouldn’t care about Hakuryuu’s remark by the time dinner came around, but he found that he did. He didn’t ask to be born a siren. So what if Hakuryuu’s mom had ruined his life or whatever? It didn’t make Judar the same as her.

But the more he tried to think that, the less true it was. The reality was that they _were_ the same. That was what really pissed him off. He wasn’t really mad at Hakuryuu at all, because Hakuryuu was right. The one who was wrong was Judar. Of course a siren shouldn’t come to disrupt the human world. A siren had more power than humans could ever hope to accumulate during their short lives.

There was nothing to do with that power in the ocean, though. So greedy sirens like himself came to the surface to partake in the drama and conflict of the human world. Hakuryuu’s mother was probably the same.

It didn’t matter if he was really having a good time in the human world. He was still a siren using them to kill his boredom, and doing so really would kill many of them. That was the unquestionable truth of the matter. Obviously humans would hate that. Hakuryuu especially had the right to hate it. Because using them was a hateful thing.

Hakuryuu didn't know he was being used, so Judar didn't need to feel remorse. He knew that.

It was just unsettling to be reminded so strongly of what he was doing wrong, lack of humanity first and foremost.

He made up an excuse of being tired from using magic and went straight to bed.

Despite it being an excuse, the magic really had worn his body out. He was tired. He was hungry despite eating a full serving of dinner. His stomach ached no matter how much magoi he poured into it. He needed more. But the amount he'd stored was coming up thin. At the rate he was going, he really would run out.

Sleeping and eating were the first lines of defense for any tired siren. Judar remembered how he'd felt after killing his first whale. Once the initial excitement left, exhaustion quickly took over. Not magoi exhaustion, but exhaustion of his body from using too much magic. He'd meant to just take a quick nap before returning to cut it up, but by the time he was awake and ready to get back to work, it was already covered in sleeper sharks and hagfish. No one wanted to eat whale with hagfish slime all over it, so he'd left it for the scavengers to keep. The only consolation was that he'd been able to take some of its magoi as it fell. Whales were unique in that they were still good dead. Everything else he'd always eaten live in the ocean. So it was only when he killed that first whale that he noticed its rukh flit over to his own palms after its death.

It hadn't been valuable in the ocean. But it could have value on land.

He lazed around the palace for a few days. It helped stave off the burning sensation but it didn't help much with the root of the problem - his magoi. Even if he did as little as possible, he was still losing magoi faster than his body could make more. It was a bad situation and he needed to be thinking of a solution instead of wasting his time hoping for a natural recovery. That'd never happen.

If only he hadn't gotten lax about monitering how much he had left. He'd let himself become distracted thinking of other things and didn't pay enough attention. It was a stupid mistake and now he was suffering the consequences.

Time passed too quickly. He didn't have the time to wait any longer for something to happen and he didn't have the magoi to make something happen himself.

He needed more. There was no way around it.

If he didn't get more soon, he would need to return to the sea. By the time he had the magoi to return Hakuryuu might have already acted on his revenge and died in a useless fight against a siren.

He wasn't going to risk that.

There weren’t a lot of ways to get more magoi. He could kill fish and take what they had but it wasn’t much. It wasn’t even enough to justify the cost of magic in killing them. The same went for almost anything else. Maybe whales would have enough, but how far would he have to go for a whale?

Staying on land was his best bet. There was plenty of magoi on land. He didn't need to regrow a tail to find more. He just needed to harvest it.

It wouldn't be hard… right?

His mind was jumbled up from exhaustion and his eyes were blurry from staring unfocused at the patterns on the palace walls as he passed. He returned to Hakuryuu's room in the evening, the same as he'd done the past few days, pretending that he'd practiced.

Judar tried to force himself to go to sleep and think about it when he was more awake and coherent but his mind was loud and his rukh was loud and he couldn’t sleep.

As a child he'd believed that he could do anything. He was a great magician, after all, and magic could do anything. It was the single most valuable gift any living thing could have. He was invincible.

Or so he'd thought.

The truth was that he was nothing without that magic. He had nothing to fall back on without it. Preserving the ability to use it needed to be his first priority.

The voice of his rukh answered his unspoken question.

_Sirens will do it. Humans will do it._

Hakuryuu was planning on becoming a murderer, and Judar had no problem with following Hakuryuu’s orders to aid him.

So it was fine if he killed for his own selfish reasons, too. 

…Right?

His rukh was a part of himself. So if he was hearing it now, it was because he needed to know that he was just lying to himself.

It made sense. If whales wouldn't do it, he needed something with more magoi than whales. That was the only answer. The clarity of his rukh was a testament to that.

Judar hadn’t heard it so clearly since before he’d surfaced - he couldn’t understand it unless his rukh was distressed enough. It used to be regular out of frustration with being unable to do anything. Now that he’d been in the human world, he’d been much calmer.

He reframed his thoughts to consider the idea. It was one thing to think about it. It was another to actually do it.

But he needed to learn to be able to if he was going to help Hakuryuu in the first place. It was pointless of him to have wasted so much magoi practicing magic when really it wasn't what he needed at all. He didn't need the confidence he got from training. He needed the resolve. One stronger than what baseless theories could give him.

There was no way he would submit himself to life in the sea again, not living but not dying.

That thought was almost enough to stop his shivering.

Hakuryuu was right. Sirens had no business in the human world. But he would keep living in it anyway.


	8. Chapter 8

With his stomach still aching from the lack of magoi, Judar found himself unable to practice magic. His situation was strange. He could use the rukh around him for simple magic but he was physically exhausted. The rukh inside of his body was his life. If it was exhausted, no matter how much rukh was around him, he would die.

Using the rukh in magic needed a certain amount of magoi anyway - the surrounding rukh may lighten the load, but it couldn’t do everything. It hurt. Judar had to be careful and find a way to get more magoi soon. Anything should do as long as he could take it.

He had to work hard even if he wasn’t practicing. No practicing meant no improvement, and no improvement meant things couldn’t change. Hakuryuu was trying to kill a siren so he needed magic that could kill a siren. Judar had been thinking about all the formulas for magic and how he might fight against any that were used against him. Even if he was drenched and electrocuted, his borg could keep it from having too strong of an effect. She would be the same.

It would be much easier if she were just a human.

Judar had never been very creative when it came to magic. His greatest accomplishments were gravity and transfer magic, from a technical standpoint. He’d be lucky if the ice and thunder spells he was so proud of made a dent on Hakuryuu’s mother’s borg.

Any siren who had the magoi to keep a fully human form long enough to have human children had the magoi to kill him, after all.

Judar couldn’t compare. Especially not in his current state.

He had to do something about his magoi. There was no way around it.

Not doing anything about it was submitting to the reality that he belonged only in the sea, chained by his tail and unable to do as he pleased.

He wouldn’t accept that.

It was frustrating being so much stronger than humans and at the same time so much weaker. If he completely ran out of magoi, something that humans couldn’t see nor comprehend, he would suddenly be unable to do anything. Humans would see what he was and kill him.

_Then why not make the first move?_

Judar left for Rakushou’s streets for fresh air, taking nothing but his staff. As he passed laborers, he sized them up. Humans without weapons could never break through his borg. Probably. Judar had never fought with a human before. Definitely not killed one. Fish, sure. Sharks too - they were plentiful in the shallow sea and fast enough to be a fun fight. Whales often fed in the lightless sea and he had killed many of them for food before. They were smaller vessels than they looked.

_And humans?_

Humans were nothing if they didn’t have a fighting spirit. Even if he tried to kill someone to test out his strategies on land or to refill his magoi, there was always the chance that a human would surprise him and overpower him. He kept repeating that in his mind, but Judar couldn’t help himself. Every human he passed he looked over quickly to see how much magoi they had.

Most didn’t have nearly enough to be worth it. To Judar’s surprise, now that he was looking he noticed a large variety in the amount of magoi each person had. At first he thought it might be related to their age or how close they were to death, but seeing an old man nearly overflowing with magoi made him rethink it.

Maybe the maximum amount of magoi that they could hold was something they were born with. Since sirens used magic often, their bodies were the ideal containers of magoi - every part of them could be filled to the brim with it. In comparison, some humans were such small vessels it it was laughable.

The farther he walked from the heart of the city the darker it felt. The clouds and buildings both blocked the sun as it slid to the edge of the sky. He was plainly out of place in the darkness of the buildings with his bright red clothes, but too deep in thought to notice. Another human with average magoi, another with less than average. One with a good amount. His rukh flicked to his ears to whisper to him.

_Follow him._

Unlike the old man, this human was a strong young man. Clad in green, Judar figured his job required a lot of heavy lifting. He must have been transported from one of the border provinces - those born in Kou proper had no need for such rigid uniforms.

The human caught on to his second step in no time and turned to look at Judar.

Judar smiled. He waved, too, to keep him from deciding Judar wasn’t a threat and continuing on his way.

“What do you want?” The human asked.

Judar focused on the man’s magoi again. It would be worth it if he could get it over with sooner than later. But it wasn’t his style to stab from the back before his opponent knew he was there.

He tightened his grip on the base of his staff.

Was he really going to do it…?

_Yes._

He could still turn back. He wanted to turn back.

_That’s not true._

He wanted—

_—to kill him._

—to keep living as he had been.

For that sake, he would have to become a murderer. Just like the ones in Scheherazade’s stories, a cruel murderer who only thought about himself and his own needs and stomped on the tiny flames of human life.

He’d known there was always the possibility he’d have to kill a human from the time he resolved to come to land. He’d known it would be necessary if there was ever danger of a human discovering his identity. If he ran out of magoi now, it’d be over. He would never see Hakuryuu or Kougyoku or even Kouha again.

He’d been prepared to do it. But only in a vague way. He had the means, but…

_Do it._

He didn’t know exactly what had changed in himself to arrive at this point. Maybe the same thing that had changed in Hakuryuu and made him want to kill his own mother - a mother, the person Judar had never known as a kid. Someone who should be warm and forgiving.

As someone without a family he could understand that by killing this man he could be making kids, just like he was, suffer just like he did. They’d grow up just like he did, knowing that the only people who were supposed to give him unconditional love had already been killed for a reason that would never have meaning to him…

It was just that the world wasn’t fair. He knew that because he had been living in that unfair world while so many humans lived lives that were given to them kindly. And that made him angry. Angry enough to forget his doubts.

“I don’t have anything against you in particular,” Judar said. “It’s just your bad luck.”

It didn’t take long to freeze the man’s feet to the ground.

The human tried to break free but found himself unable to. Trapped. He was too proud to scream, and instead hurled insults at Judar and tried to break the ice holding him down.

“Monster! Demon! Take off that human mask and fight me with honor!”

His efforts and insults were futile. Judar’s ice was far too strong for a human to break by flailing.

Judar collected more water. Though the rainy season was over, Rakushou was close enough to the sea to always have a certain amount of moisture in the air. It made for easy ice spears.

“S, stop! I’ll give you money if that’s what you want—”

“No way. Who do you think I am?” Judar motioned downwards with his staff. The man was pierced in his back, his shoulder, and even his head. Finally, he screamed. Loud enough to alert someone to the scene, that was for sure. “Couldn’t you be a little quieter?” Judar grumbled.

Rukh moved to silence the man. A spell for muting a person should have looked like any other spell. But watching the small birds, no larger than moths, flutter and stuff themselves into his mouth before evaporating into light had the same surreal feeling as watching rain fall for the first time, even though he’d been using magic his whole life. Could he feel the of the rukh wings flapping desperately in his throat?

Surely he was just shaken by the screaming. It was only a spell. Rukh was impossible to touch or feel.

Judar took a few steps closer. His legs were less steady than he would have liked. It would be careless to get as close as he was if the man wasn't frozen to the ground. If he had the determination left, he could still punch. But he didn’t. He was pierced in one too many places and his arms lay limp at his side.

Judar lifted the human's head by the hair to make sure he was dead. He blew into wide-open eyes and, not content that it was a good way to check, sent another ice spear through his open mouth. It was met with resistance from his insides, but that didn’t matter. No one, not even a siren, could live through that.

Judar had known Aladdin to be able to utilize the rukh of others and even fish to an extreme extent, but the best Judar could ever do was scavenge it off the dead. He couldn’t look at it inside of the living like Aladdin. He could only steal it from corpses and see if it still had the individuality to do more than produce magoi. That suited his purpose just fine.

The rukh loved him. Even if he killed the body it was living in until now, it fluttered to his hand like it was their home.

The man’s memories were stored in his rukh, and Judar couldn’t imagine them being very useful. But he allowed himself to listen to the rukh for a little on the walk back to the palace. The human had a small child, a son, who he must have been thinking about in his last moments. Judar didn’t interact much with human children. Maybe he could get some information about the human world from it.

It was better than thinking about those wide-open but lifeless eyes.

Judar had hoped he would be wholly indifferent to the act once it was over, but he wasn’t. He wasn’t a child anymore, for starters. He fully realized that the person he killed had a consciousness much like his own instead of one like a fish - it was inside his own mind now, after all. He could clearly see the thoughts the human had as he died.

Even so, he didn’t feel regret. Just the feeling that he would do it again, and again, and again if he chose to stay on land. It wasn’t a cold feeling, but one that burnt behind his eyes and the back of his throat. It was something he had to do that others didn’t.

_And you will do it._

Judar stopped. The street was silent but for his footsteps. He was alone.

“…‘You,’” he repeated.

His rukh laughed. It was a playful sound that reached his ears but not his mind.

Judar didn’t feel like laughing at all.

But maybe it’d be easier that way.

When Judar came back Hakuryuu was already in his room, hair down and candle lit, reading a scroll. Judar ignored him and went straight to sleep. Normally it was fun talking to him but Judar wasn’t really in the mood. His legs were tired from walking through unfamiliar streets.

It was a long night, but by morning he was certain. Having magoi was more important than that man’s life. His selfish desires were more important than that man’s life. It was fine to be like that because he was a siren. Humans might need humanity, but he didn’t.

It was easier to face Hakuryuu if he accepted what he said that day on the coast as true, too. He had already subconsciously realized it before Hakuryuu said anything anyway. His meddling wouldn’t be appreciated by any human, especially not one whose life had already been ruined by a siren.

It just didn’t really matter.

He kissed Hakuryuu knowing full well that if Hakuryuu knew who he was and what he was doing, he would be disgusted.

Judar knew that Hakuryuu had noticed him acting strangely the past few days. He knew because Hakuryuu had felt his forehead for a temperature and asked about his appetite. But he didn’t ask any more than that.

If Hakuryuu was scared of asking or just didn’t care enough to want to know, he didn’t know. But he wouldn’t have said anything even if Hakuryuu had asked. As long as no one caught him everything could easily stay a secret until Hakuryuu’s death.

Everyone else he’d come to know in the last few months would be gone then, too. They were only humans. The rukh was not on their side. ‘Fate’ was not on their side. It was on the side of sirens, watching over their shoulders, just partial enough to keep them living but not invested enough to keep them happy.

Judar never stopped to consider if living this lie was what he really wanted. Things happened too fast to stop to think about it.

The feeling of his insides being empty of magoi had not left entirely, despite that he had plenty for the time being. It was almost like the emptiness had be replaced with nothing but a thin bile, far removed from the warm feeling he’d always associated with being brimming with magoi.

The human he killed was not important. But Judar struggled to get him of his mind. The image his rukh showed him of the human’s son was burned into his mind beside the last look the dead man had given him.

That child might grow up like Hakuryuu to see revenge on his father’s murderer. Or he might be a forgiving person in a few years who thought everything happened for a reason.

He might even be like Judar, never making a move because there was nothing he could do alone.

But he was changing that, too. He wouldn’t passively allow himself to be pushed back into the sea. He’d fight back in order to remain in the human world he’d grown to like being a part of.

Judar retraced his steps towards the street he killed that man in. It was dark when he’d done it, but now that it was light, it was easy to tell where it happened: the street was too bloody to leave room for doubt.

He expected the body to be where he left it, but it was long gone. In its place was a woman standing watch. Judar tried to veer off towards another road, pretend he had another destination in mind, but she called out to him.

“Name and occupation.”

Coming back was clearly a mistake. His rukh reacted with sour chirps that didn’t quiet down even when he willed them to. He needed to focus. Think of something good. Not let himself be distracted by his own rukh.

If Hakuryuu were caught back at the scene of a crime, he’d have something smart for Judar to say. Just like when he used to give excuses for Judar to rattle off when he was dressed like a slave. 

He’d make up an excuse like that.

“I’m here on official business as requested by the fourth imperial prince,” Judar lied. It came out easily and sounded convincing to Judar’s ears.

The woman didn’t budge. “A retainer to an imperial prince still must comply with the questions of a magistrate,” she said.

Judar wasn’t sure what a magistrate was, but if she was that important he had his work cut out for himself.

He gave her his name and she only nodded, committing it to memory but not recording it. That was a good sign.

Her next questions were simple. “Why have you come to the crime scene?”

It went without saying that Judar knew about the case. Speculating about the murderer was prime gossip - news spread fast with such a grisly scene.

Rumors were good. They were easy to twist and use for his advantage. Hakuryuu had been doing it his whole life, and it’d worked well on Kouen.

“Hakuryuu said he wanted to know the details of the case. He likes to know what goes on, even outside the palace.”

“Where were you and your liege on the day of the murder?”

“In the palace, mostly. Though I did go to the markets for awhile. He studied the whole time. Doesn’t get out a lot, you know?”

The woman only blinked, satisfied enough by his answer to not bother asking any more questions. “If your lord the prince has curiosity regarding the incident, by all means invite him to the magistrate’s office,” she said. “However, we are taking our investigation of this area seriously. We cannot find the culprit with innocents using this street as they please, so all traffic is on hold. Lord Kouen wishes for all crime to be solved promptly, as you know, and we adhere to his wishes. I apologize, but you must leave.”

Judar got the feeling that she was familiar enough with the imperial family’s politics to know that she didn’t want anything to do with a retainer of the fourth prince, hence him being shooed away. Officials always acted like such pests. The national exam did too much for their egos.

Still, it was a good way out. Judar didn’t fancy hanging around long enough to be suspicious and returned to the palace.

Thinking about it was useless in the first place. It wouldn’t help his situation.

His only viable option was researching something, anything he might be able to use to kill Gyokuen with.

Judar began spent in the library searching scrolls to see if he could find one on magic. He hated reading and it took him forever to sound out words, but what else could he do?

The library was even bigger than Judar’s first impression had led him to believe. Almost ten shelves were dedicated to strange subjects with no practical uses, and that was just in Torran. He was pretty sure he was the only one in the palace fluent in Torran. The human obsession with collecting scrolls must have been completely purposeless if they wasted so much space on things they couldn’t even read.

Oddly enough, many of the Torran scrolls lacked a dust covering. The scrolls that he and Hakuryuu had been studying with made sense. But there were others that he didn’t think anyone else should have been reading.

A scroll on ancient Torran legends. There was even a messy scroll describing an incomprehensible scientific theory. A curious scroll on plants and animals with notes in the margins commenting that they didn’t exist. It was torn halfway, just as a section on sirens began. Whoever read it must have taken the torn portion for further research.

Why had those scrolls been read recently, and who had read them? It wasn’t Judar. It probably wasn't Hakuryuu. Kouen, perhaps? Hakuryuu said he had an interest in the Torran people. And he had visited recently between campaigns.

But an interest in Torran people shouldn’t have extended to an interest in sirens. Not unless he was really smart. If he was, then Hakuryuu’s worries were completely reasonable.

Eventually he found what he was looking for: a Torran scroll describing mythical magic formulas. It didn’t seem well used at all and had a thick layer of dust along the edges - most likely it had been stored and forgotten, never looked at again. It was funny since it was probably one of the library’s most useful scrolls, forgotten only in the assumption that magic didn’t really exist.

It described magic to push someone immeasurable distances by disrupting the flow of gravity, magic to turn borg into a weapon, magic to cancel out all other magic.

That was it. That was what he needed.

The only way for Hakuryuu to truly defeat a siren was to make them like a normal human, no, like a fish out of water. The problem was that Judar would also become a fish out of water. With his cover blown, he would most likely be forced to return to the sea.

Judar stared at the diagram long and hard. It made sense. If he concentrated magic in several points across the palace - no, dozens, around sixty, he could create something similar to a giant borg. Barriers prevented malicious magic from entering, so changing the purpose to not allow any magic to exist inside was simple.

So simple. Judar wished he had been the one to think of it.

As interesting as it was, it wasn’t something Judar could use. He had to find another way. Even if Hakuryuu accomplished his goal, it was meaningless if Judar wasn’t around to see the result.

After spending the whole day in that stuffy old library he needed fresh air. His wandering brought him to Kouha and an older man. Well, slightly older. But in serious need of a skin care routine.

“Hey, Judar. Skipping on your day job again?” Kouha asked.

“Judar? This is Hakuryuu’s retainer, then?”

“If retainers don’t need to know how to fight,” Kouha said. “Brother En met him, remember? He’s _that_ Judar.

The older man stared at Judar in the same threatening way that Kouen had done. Judar smiled back despite his bad mood. “You must be the second prince. Wow, I’ve met all of you now, haven’t I?”

“…Yes. Thank you for taking care of Hakuryuu… and Kougyoku as well.”

Judar raised an eyebrow. He was pretty sure the prince was trying to be intimidating by showing off how much he knew, but with his oily skin and hair he looked liked he had trouble taking care of himself, much less a potential threat to the nation’s security.

“Come on, Judar, say something. Brother Mei is a treasure to our nation. Way more than someone who slacks off all day.”

“I do stuff. I keep Hakuryuu in a good mood.”

Kouha and his brother exchanged a doubtful look.

Finally, the second prince - Koumei, apparently - asked if Judar would accompany them for tea. Asking as it may have been, it was obvious that he was supposed to say yes. And hey, free food.

So he went with the two princes to a tea house. Only once he was there did Judar think to wonder if Kouen had asked for further surveillance of him by his siblings.

Or maybe they’d like to question him about the murder from the other day. Murder was unusual in Rakushou because of the strict punishment, and he’d left the body in a state that most humans couldn’t. He made sure to melt the ice before leaving but didn’t do anything else. He should have thought harder before doing something so flashy. Most of the soldiers weren’t in the capital, and from the wounds it was clear that the killer was skilled in fighting…

He’d given his name to the magistrate, too. What a stupid move. He should have pretended to be Ka Koubun or some other idiot who would take questioning as a chance to prove himself as a good answerer.

And he should have dumped the body in the ocean instead of just leaving it there. Or sucked up his false humanity and eaten it so it looked like a dog was at fault.

It was lucky that the palace thought of him as nothing more than a spoiled lover of a prince. They shouldn’t suspect him. But he’d best cover his bases and prepare for the worst.

If the imperial family suspected that he was more than he let on, or if he was going to be questioned about the murder, he was in a bad spot. He wasn’t in the clear yet just because he’d found a way to recharge his magoi. He had to get away with it, too. As many times as it took.

But it was also possible that the invitation's only purpose was to let Kouha talk to him.

Kouha, oddly enough, seemed to be getting pretty fond of Judar. It was worrying in more ways than one. Hakuryuu would hate it, first of all, and be in a bad mood even more often. And even if he didn’t, Kouha was way too much of a tattletale to his brothers. It wasn’t like talking to Kougyoku at all.

There were too many things he needed to avoid saying and Koumei often used large words that he was unfamiliar with. It might have just been his low magoi putting him on edge, but Judar was feeling pretty irritated about the whole encounter. The free food definitely wasn't turning out to be worth the trouble.

“Judar,” Koumei said between sips of tea. “An unusual name. May I ask the origins of it?”

“…I don’t know.”

“How can you not know the meaning of your own name?”

“‘Cause I never met the parents who gave it to me. How would I know what they were thinking?”

Actually, one of the servants had asked the same thing before Judar was promoted. Names were an important and structured part of the Kou Empire’s culture. Having a name outside of that structure clearly marked him as a foreigner, even if he was lucky to not look foreign.

His birth colony was likely in Kou’s waters. He resembled those from the east more closely than he resembled traders who came from afar. So it was easy to make a convincing excuse.

“My parents died before I can remember, and I was adopted and brought to a remote region of the empire where I grew up… But I like Rakushou better than the outskirts. It’s way more lively.”

They looked pretty convinced. Judar smiled in satisfaction. If they were that easy to trick he had nothing to worry about. The hardest part was introducing himself the first few times. Once he had everyone’s trust, as long as his true identity wasn’t revealed he should be fine.

Kouha changed the topic to asking about what Judar liked to do in his free time. It truly seemed to be nothing more than an innocent excuse to get to know their moody cousin’s retainer.

At times when the conversation faded for a minute, Judar could hear others in the tea house gossiping about the grisly murder case. He kept his expression neutral and although he noticed Kouha and Koumei’s eyes flicker towards the gossip, neither commented.

Kouha and Koumei kept him for almost two hours. Two hours that he would have to explain to Hakuryuu, and that was an ordeal that might take another two hours. 

It had been difficult to face Hakuryuu like normal since the day on the coast. Of course it was - his illusion of living happily in the human world, fitting in as a perfect human imitation, was shattered by his need for magoi. He was still trying to find a way to piece it back together, but it was slow. He needed more magoi before he could begin to feel like a convincing human again.

When Judar finally made it back, he wasn’t surprised to see that Hakuryuu was already in his room, incense burner lit. He wasn’t even all too surprised that Hakuryuu left his door unlocked for the evening again. It was becoming a new routine.

He was at his desk studying a scroll. Judar glanced it over - the modern language.

Hakuryuu rerolled the scroll. How he could get scrolls looking good as new each time he rolled them was beyond Judar. Every scroll he took out ended up looking like a mess.

He stood from his desk, and their eyes met. Hakuryuu's face was familiar. Looking at him untangled some of the tension within Judar's stomach.

It was strange. He hadn’t been looking forward to seeing Hakuryuu at all, but now that he was here he wanted to hold him and sleep. Sleep and forget about the need for magoi to keep seeing Hakuryuu gnawing at the back of his mind.

But first, he had something to say. “I met Koumei today.”

Hakuryuu almost looked like he didn’t believe it. “How do you manage to meet all these people?”

“I dunno. Guess I’m pretty popular. He was with Kouha and made me go with to get tea. I think he was trying to help Kouha make friends with me.”

“I doubt that was all…”

“I was pretty suspicious at first too. But they asked pretty normal questions. Nothing could have incriminated you, so don't worry.”

Hakuryuu crossed his arms, waiting for a more thorough explanation.

“…It was like, where I was from, what I like to do in my free time, and some stuff about fashion… I guess Kouha's pretty into that.”

He still didn't look pleased, so Judar huffed and flopped down on Hakuryuu's bed. “Whatever! Go ask them if you want to know every detail.”

“No, it’s not that. You seem, um…”

Judar turned to look back at Hakuryuu from his place on the bed. Hakuryuu looked away, took a deep breath, and shook his head.

“No, it's nothing. Let’s just go to sleep.”

Hakuryuu blew out the lamp and covered the incense burner, then lay down without ordering Judar to go back to the couch. Then he rested his forehead on Judar’s back.

At first he didn't know how to react. Normally Judar was the one to try to hold onto Hakuryuu while they slept. Soon he relaxed into a comfortable position, Hakuryuu still at his back. It was nice to be the one who was held.

As easy as it was to fall asleep in warm arms, Judar woke many times. Each time he made sure his robes were covering his gills properly. With Hakuryuu as close as he was, he must have been woken up each time as well. But he didn’t say anything.

Dawn broke and Hakuryuu left to tend to the day’s errands. Without him it was harder to get back to sleep when he woke. Judar’s own rukh, nothing more than dark blotches to his tired eyes, chirped loudly, filled with irritation at every pair of footsteps to cross the hall.

Too tired to put up with it any longer, Judar cut his losses and got out of bed.

The morning air was stiff and itchy inside his lungs. His magoi wasn’t getting any better, of course. It was still draining. But he still had it in himself to practice.

On his way to the palace gates, Judar noticed Kougyoku. Normally he didn’t run into her except when she was training. She was with Ka Koubun, the man she always trained with and her sole retainer as the unimportant eighth princess. Instead of something loose for fighting he was wearing a garish yellow outfit. It suited his garish personality.

Kougyoku was on the verge of tears, but she used her sleeves to try to hide it.

“Judar,” she said. “It’s good to see you.”

He raised an eyebrow. Ka Koubun offered no explanation, and instead urged Kougyoku to calm down. “Your current state isn’t becoming of an imperial princess,” he said.

Kougyoku nodded, sniffling.

“What’s up, Kougyoku?” Judar asked. It wasn’t every day Kougyoku had something going on. If anything it would give him something to do.

She took a deep breath before answering. “I am to marry Balbadd’s king.”

“Balbadd? That little country to the west?”

“Yes. It is the trade capital of this continent and my marriage will be beneficial to the country.”

“I thought you were gonna become a general.”

Kougyoku looked away. Ka Koubun answered for her. “Securing Balbadd for the empire by marriage is just as important as fighting for it with a sword.”

Judar hmmed and was about to leave when Kougyoku took his sleeve in her hand. “Judar, please wait.”

“What?”

“Ka Koubun, leave us.”

Judar sighed. He didn’t understand what she was playing at. Still, it was the first time he’d heard of a political marriage. Sirens only committed to another for a love deep enough they were certain they'd never love anyone else as much as they loved their current partner. It required a great deal of thought and determination - one had to think long and hard before committing since it meant they'd be spending thousands of years together. So the thought of marrying not for love but for the sake of a country was strange. He was curious how well it worked.

When they were alone, Kougyoku walked with him for awhile before speaking. “I don’t want to do it,” she said. “I don’t have many friends here, but… Kou is my home, where my family is. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life away from them.”

“Why not? I’d think it was suffocating living where you were born until you die.”

Kougyoku blinked, surprised. “I do wish that I had the ability to do more myself, and being the queen of another country may allow for that. However… I wanted to be a general. And I wanted to fall in love.”

She made it sound like her life was over. Maybe she was actually the romantic type. He’d agreed to talk because it sounded interesting, but as Kougyoku cried softly, sobs sounding more erratic than they probably were thanks to their rhythmic footsteps, he wished he was somewhere else.

Kougyoku sniffed again. “S, sorry. I thought you would understand.”

“Why would I?”

“Ka Koubun doesn’t have anyone here, so I don’t expect him to understand. But if you had to go far away and couldn’t spend time with Hakuryuu anymore, wouldn’t you be sad?”

Judar shrugged. “I’d get bored and come back.” He didn’t bother to correct her assumption about him and Hakuryuu. He found that he didn’t mind the rumor.

“I won’t be able to. I’ll be stuck in a marriage I don’t want.”

“Why are you doing it then?”

“My father the emperor wishes for it.”

“You need a new emperor then.”

Kougyoku stopped walking to look at him. “…Judar?”

“What?”

“Do you… know what you just said?”

“That you need a new emperor if you hate it that much.”

“H-he’s my father… I can’t just—”

“Why? Does it really matter if he’s your father? He’ll die eventually anyway. Why not get something out of it?”

Panicked, Kougyoku turned to check if anyone heard. She stepped back, then back again. “I, um, have to go,” she said and fled before Judar could ask what was wrong with that he said.

Human hierarchies were going to be the death of him. Or was it because he was her family? It was hard to tell.

Over the next few days Judar tried experimenting with the isolation barrier formula. At first he’d written it off because it would remove his own magic as well, but he may be able to use it from the outside. It needed a large number of points to function, but that was something that the rukh would take care of.

The crowded city was too much of a risk, so Judar set up his experiment on the coast. By embedding pieces of the formula in trees or in the ocean, life and water type rukh would aid in executing it. Then, when the barrier was no longer needed, all he had to do was go outside of its range and destroy one of the outer points.

It was an intricate and impressive formula. Judar wasn't the type to geek out about magic, but if he showed the barrier to someone who was it would surely make them cry for how well done it was. Judar wished he could show it off.

Unfortunately, setting up the points took more effort than he thought it would. He messed up plenty of times and accidentally blew up a few dozen trees in the process. Thankfully there were no cities for miles, allowing Judar to continue working without human interruption.

It took several trips over three days to finish setting up all sixty points. Every ten or so he was so hungry that he had to get something to eat. Finally, with it complete, Judar could test setting it up.

He tried activating the barrier from the outside edge on the forest’s side. A few of the outer points did begin to work. But one or two points weren’t enough to completely break the effects of magic. All it did was kind of irritate the rukh.

Judar did the same experiment from several different angles only to get the same results over and over again. Eventually he was forced to conclude that it was impossible. The only place that could create a complete isolation barrier from the inside. It probably didn’t have to be from the dead center - anywhere within the inner circle of points would most likely do it fine. Then the inner points would ignite the outer circles, and…

It would work. There was no conceivable way that it wouldn’t work. That was what made it so frustrating. It worked, and he couldn’t use it because if he did then Hakuryuu would see his scaly, suffocating body and he would be in just as much trouble as Hakuryuu’s mother.

Judar huffed and left the inactive barrier without bothering to dismantle it. He’d do it later when he had the magoi for it. Right now he needed sleep.


	9. Chapter 9

Life was the highest form of energy. Humans were probably the most energetic form of life. Magoi was the essence of the rukh, their lifeblood. It didn’t make sense that they had so little.

If only Judar’s legs were as easy to keep as they were for humans. But to change his body in such a way was to cut off his natural flow of magoi. So it drained and drained and drained and would never stop draining. He was constantly aware of it. The rukh of the man he killed was still inside of him. He was constantly aware of it.

Scheherazade’s stories had been so happy. Adventure stories, stories of people she loved, people who did wonderful things who she was happy with and who were happy with her. A man who she spoke of as if she’d met him yesterday, though it’d surely been hundreds of years, selflessly cherishing the world he was born in.

When Judar had first come to land, he was probably imagining something like that. The same most likely went for Yunan as he encouraged Judar by means of showing him how to live above water. Even Scheherazade, when she finally heard of him leaving, probably imagined that he’d be drawn towards a bright human as she was. It was definitely the stereotype of a siren that went to land.

And there probably were lots of humans who had pure wishes like the man in Scheherazade’s stories. It might have been easy to find one. Even Kouha and Kougyoku were always trying become happy.

But living on land wasn’t the same as being happy. It was only that: living. Locked inside of a cage. This time it wasn’t one at the bottom of the sea. It was the cage of his own body, sitting in the middle of the human world as an outsider, taunting his inability to be what he wanted.

What did he want in the first place? He probably wanted what the others went to land for. He was probably jealous of the life Scheherazade had long ago and, gullible as he was, assumed that he could also live in a fairy tale.

He couldn’t.

He was angry for ever falling for such a stupid story, one that may not have ever happened in the first place. Scheherazade was old. Her memory had to be spotty. It’d be better if her happiness never existed than it would be if it were a real possibility he’d failed to achieve.

It became easy to fantasize of letting go of his magic at least while he slept. Never mind that he needed a long formula to start the magic again, Hakuryuu could see. Even if he wrapped his tail in blankets… It was too big of a risk.

The fact that he was a siren was inescapable. It was reality. The magic to make him human - no, magic that gave him the illusion of being human - was only temporary. That was why everyone returned to the sea. Because legs stole their magoi and left their insides dry and empty.

So… he needed to let go of the idea that there was anything meaningful he could get from the human world. Someone else might’ve been able to, once upon a time, but they were different from Judar. Someone like Scheherazade or even Yunan had probably been different from him since birth.

It was impossible to sleep. Judar stood in the dark room. If his own rukh weren’t making such a fuss he might have remembered to get up quietly. But it was so loud that he forgot no one else could hear it but him.

No one was ever in the hall so late at night. Maybe there were guards where the first prince slept, but not where Hakuryuu slept. It was easy to leave, if only for fresh air.

The night air would have been uncomfortably cold on any other day, but it was just what he needed to rid himself of the suffocating heat that seemed to radiate from Hakuryuu’s sleeping form.

He’d come so far. He couldn’t turn back.

He couldn’t run out of magoi. Of course not. Even if it was impossible to find something meaningful on land, it was better meaningless fun than anything. All he had to do was get back to the point of enjoyment. From the bottom, he could only go up.

The city was more lively than the palace but not by much. It was too late for even nightlife. Only a few stragglers hobbling back home from a long night out remained. They were easy prey.

Judar focused on their magoi instead of their faces. It was strange that humans couldn’t see the rukh or the magoi flowing within their bodies when that energy was the reason Judar had to kill them.

Their rukh told him that they were scared and didn’t know why it was happening, but there was no going back. Shut up, shut up.

If he didn’t take their magoi, his false body would continue eating itself alive. 

The frustration kept him going even after he’d taken two lives. As soon as he would think of going back, he’d see a trail of bright rukh and follow like he was possessed.

Human rukh should have been the same as his own. But it wasn’t. Everyone else had bright and shining rukh. It was easy to find in the dark and easy to begin to feel it was almost alright.

He was told as a kid that all forms of life shared the same basic element: rukh. And, as far as his childish self had known, it was true. In the deep sea it’d been easy to assume he'd just missed it, forgotten to open his eyes since they were useless in the first place there. But not all rukh was the same. Only his reflected no light.

Every day he was surrounded by many kinds of rukh. From the sun, the sand, the sea. From fish and insects and humans. Every kind of rukh he saw was bright and shining. All but his own.

It made no sense. He couldn’t even begin to understand why his was different. It was one thing for it to be uncommon, but another for him to be the only one in the world with dark rukh. He refused to believe it was possible for months, but that resolve was wavering. Maybe it was fitting for the color to be a fluke.

White rukh was easy to find even in the darkest of streets. As he followed trail after trail, he showed them that their brilliantly shining rukh, hidden from human eyes in the first place, wouldn’t bother to save them.

When the late night streets were left lifeless Judar could finally catch his breath.

By the time he returned to the palace a light rain had started. It would have been possible to stay dry with magic, especially now that he’d recovered a safe amount. But getting soaked to the bone as the rain picked up was a little nostalgic.

The first day he arrived in the world of humans, the rain started out light and picked up in the same way. But it was much warmer back then. There was no warmth in this rain. It was to be expected - summer couldn’t last forever.

Several people died because of him that night. Their rukh swirled inside of his stomach. It wouldn’t take long for his own to overpower it. The laments of the dead would fade away inside of him just like that, left without the individuality they’d spent their lives building.

In under a year, this was the place the human world brought him. From someone who was too much of a child to leave the barrier on his own to someone who killed humans selfishly. At least he got his wish - it wasn’t dull like the ocean. It was much, much more…

He felt faint. Maybe Hakuryuu was right and he really was going to fall over from not eating well enough. It would be such an inconvenient time that he was suddenly certain it would happen. Hakuryuu was always right about those stupid things.

One foot in front of the other, slowly, like he was still learning to walk. The palace gates. Right, jumping was the best way to make it. His mind repeated his memories of that day instead of looking with his eyes.

In what he now knew to be a shaded entry hall, those memories ended. Judar blinked the water out of his eyes a few times, focusing on that spot that was shielded from the rain. It wasn’t empty like it was on that day.

Hakuryuu stood there, waiting for him. As usual, no matter the circumstance, Judar couldn’t feel that he didn't want to see him. He did. He wanted to return to how things had been before. But that was naive.

Without any help to offer and without any insults to throw, all Hakuryuu was doing was standing in Judar’s way.

Even so Judar waited, continuing to be soaked by the rain, for Hakuryuu to explain his intentions.

“I heard you leave,” Hakuryuu finally said. “At first I thought you might be going to someone’s room. But I see you were in the city instead.”

It should have been harder to hear him in the rain than it was. But the rain’s rhythmic drops did nothing to drown out his voice. Perhaps they were closer than Judar had initially thought. The cold wasn’t doing his mind a favor, that was for sure.

“Where were you? Nothing is open at this time. And it has been raining for awhile now.”

“Why do you care?” Judar asked.

“…Earlier, I thought you might be a spy… That can’t be right for many reasons. But I have no doubt that you have the acting skills for it.”

Despite everything, Judar laughed. The sound didn’t come out how he wanted it to. It was funny, it really was, but it was hard to laugh when it felt like his throat was frozen. It was too late in the year to be standing in the rain.

For some time Hakuryuu was silent. His suspicions, whatever they were, were not confirmed or denied. So it was surprising when he held out a hand anyway.

“You’ll be lucky if you get out of this with just a cold,” he said.

\---

It was the second time Judar was sick from cold. He woke up more, understood more of his surroundings, but he couldn’t say that he was better off than he was the first time. 

Once again Hakuryuu didn’t call anyone to help. But he did stay. He tried to help remove Judar's cold clothes until his hands were batted away enough times that he gave up and let Judar do it himself. He even lay down with Judar. At first his arms, though dry, seemed almost as cold as the air. As Judar drifted in and out of consciousness Hakuryuu felt warmer each time. It might have only been a night, or maybe a whole day that he lay warmed by Hakuryuu. Or maybe it was no time at all and his sick mind was only making it up to comfort him.

It didn’t really matter. When Judar was conscious enough to realize he was wasting magoi on altering the shape of his vocal chords he stopped. At the moment he had plenty of magoi. But it wouldn’t last. It had become so important to him to monitor his magoi even when he could barely think that he was sure he wanted to recover soon despite what waited for him on the other end. Time spent sick was time wasted in the human world.

Occasionally Judar was aware enough to feel Hakuryuu’s arms tightening around his waist. He was probably asleep. Judar opened his eyes to find that it wasn’t dark out but wasn’t light either. Dawn, most likely. Hakuryuu would be gone soon. But if it was dusk he would stay longer… Judar fell asleep before he could decide the definite time of day.

The next time Judar woke up Hakuryuu was still there and it was dark. He felt much better.

Hakuryuu still had his arms wrapped around Judar’s waist from behind. It was comfortable but he was getting stiff.

“Hakuryuu… are you awake?” Judar realized a second too late that he said it in Torran. He always proved Hakuryuu right with that one - when he was tired, he always used Torran without thinking. He quickly fixed his magic.

Hakuryuu’s response was to flinch in surprise. He sat up immediately, pulling on Judar’s shoulder to look at his face. A shocked expression, then, as if it was a mistake for Judar to see anything resembling vulnerability, he became stern.

“Tell me what you were doing out there.”

Judar sighed. One wrong move and all Hakuryuu’s trust was gone. He understood that risk since the day he came to land, so it wasn’t like it was unexpected. It was probably a normal reaction to figuring out that someone whose job was to serve him had been doing other things as well. What he hadn’t expected was the feeling in his gut. He didn’t want to give up his place in Kou yet, living and sleeping with Hakuryuu.

But if Hakuryuu was anything, it was paranoid. Unless some kind of miracle occurred, convincing him to allow things to continue as they had been would remain a hopeless situation.

Not that he was betting on a miracle. It wasn’t hope - it was stubbornness.

“Is there anything that I could have done that would bother you so much you don’t need my power anymore?”

“…Of course there is.”

“Like what?”

“I’m not answering _your_ questions.”

“Then why should I answer yours?” 

Hakuryuu didn’t have anything to say to that. Judar tried to take his hand. If he really needed power more than he needed his morals, Judar would be there for him.

Naturally, his hand was slapped away. Of course, even if Judar wanted him to accept it, he wouldn’t. Hakuryuu had already proven that he could hold a grudge.

“I don’t need it. I don’t need the power of someone who will betray me. No one would accept that power.”

“I won’t betray you. You’re my favorite.”

“Then tell me what you were doing! If it was nothing, then this is an easy question. But you aren’t telling me. So it was something, wasn’t it!?”

Judar closed his eyes. It was really unlucky that Hakuryuu had to notice him leaving. It was bound to happen eventually, but it could have happened after they killed his mother. Because then Hakuryuu would have no more reason to doubt, with his goals accomplished…

“Why aren’t you telling me!”

This time the one who reached out was Hakuryuu. He grabbed Judar’s wrists harshly. He must not have realized that he was crushing them - at the very least, it wasn’t malicious enough for Judar’s borg to activate. But it would leave bruises for sure.

Hakuryuu was angry enough that a lie wouldn’t cut it. Chances were that nothing except for the truth he was looking for would cut it. There was probably only one more thing that Judar could do to convince him to keep trusting: remind him of the value in his magic. He would have preferred it not come to that.

“Hey, Hakuryuu. I’m tired of sitting here. Wanna go for a walk?”

Hakuryuu searched Judar’s eyes for a moment before agreeing. Didn’t trust him enough to use him, but trusted him enough to go somewhere secluded with him. The betrayal that Hakuryuu feared was likely not a physical betrayal at all.

Their destination was the beach. It would take a long time to reach the city outskirts, especially with the puddles that covered many of Rakushou’s streets. There was enough time for a long talk on the way.

Hakuryuu, of course, took his sword with. His hand didn’t just rest on the hilt. He gripped it tightly so he was ready to draw it at any moment. It was an obvious threat but Judar didn’t think he would really pull it.

It took awhile for Judar to figure out where to start. Twenty paces outside the palace gates, to be exact. “Do you know how magic works?”

“…No. You said that people were either born able to use it or unable, and that it was impossible for the rest of us to understand.”

“That’s right. It’s impossible because you can’t see the rukh.”

“Rukh?”

“Energy. I’d call them balls of light, but they’re more like birds of light. And not all of them are light.” Judar’s eyes followed one of his own as it soared alongside them. Despite all the human magoi he’d taken, his rukh’s quality didn’t change a bit. It was as dark as it’d always been. “When you use magic, they glow different colors for a second. It’s weird that you can’t see them since they’re always making a fuss one way or another. Really weak… magicians… can only use their own rukh.”

“‘Their own’ rukh?”

“Yeah. Everything has rukh. It’s kinda complicated and I don’t really get it, so don’t ask for the details. Anyway, strong magicians like me can use the rukh of everything around.”

Hakuryuu nodded. He seemed a little doubtful, like he was taking it in as more of a possibility than the truth since it was coming from the mouth of a liar. That was fine.

“But, you know. Even when you can use the rukh around you, it’s still possible to run out of energy. That energy is called magoi. When you lose all of the magoi in your body, you die.”

The next street was the market. It was late enough that no one was there. Hakuryuu’s grip had weakened on his sword’s hilt. Judar didn’t get his hopes up.

Finally, the town broke into smaller residential streets. It wouldn’t take too much longer to be at the edge. Though there was a low risk of anyone seeing them leave even if he tried transferring right in the middle of the street, he wanted the time.

“Normally, when you overuse your magoi or run out of strength, just eating is enough to get it back. But it isn’t that simple for me.”

“Why.” It wasn’t a question but a demand.

Hakuryuu was knowledgeable in biology and it would be too easy for him to pick apart Judar’s dismal understanding of human bodies. Making up a sob story was out of the question. A partial truth was the best he could do.

“I can’t explain it. But even now I’m using magic to keep my body working… It’s a real strain.”

“Where are you headed with this?” Hakuryuu finally asked as the city’s outer gate came into view.

“…When you eat. You’re taking the magoi of something that was alive and making more of your own with it. It’s the same principle.”

“The same principle as…” 

“Killing. You take their magoi… and make it your own.”

Hakuryuu stopped walking. Judar kept walking, thinking Hakuryuu would catch up, but stopped to look back when he didn’t.

He was breathing hard enough for Judar to see it ten steps away. After all, his brothers were murdered. But he had to be aware that it was strange for it to bother him.

“What’s wrong, Hakuryuu? Weren’t you going to kill your mother?”

“What kinds of people…?”

“I dunno. Whoever had a lot of magoi. Old men who had been out all night with friends, girls who were coming home late from seeing their secret lovers…”

“Innocents! They were innocents!”

Obviously.

“So it’s okay to kill people as long as they aren’t innocent? How do you decide who should die then?”

Tears welled up in Hakuryuu’s eyes. It would have been impossible to tell from so far away in the dark of twenty minutes ago. Morning came even at times like this, didn’t it? Tears looked strange on Hakuryuu’s furious face. But for all his anger, he didn’t have a response.

“Come on. We aren’t there yet.”

Judar didn’t have to look back to know that Hakuryuu followed. His footsteps were loud and every now and then he sniffled.

“It’s not like I had anything against them in particular,” Judar continued idly. “But even if I did they probably wouldn’t have deserved to die. My personal feelings don’t mean anything. No one has the right to decide whether someone else is worthy of living or not… Even you understand that, right?”

Judar paused for Hakuryuu to respond. He didn’t.

“Even if they didn’t deserve to die, I killed them. Because I felt like it. Because I don’t want to leave yet, and I hate them for living so carefree… I want to keep living here in this world.”

“That’s too selfish.”

At the edge of the city, far from the last houses, Judar cast his transfer magic painlessly thanks to all the work he’d done a few days ago. His lingering sickness meant nothing when he was full of magoi.

At once they stood at the edge of the gray ocean that Judar had first washed up on with Yunan. The prints his new feet made in the sand that day had washed away long ago. But he recognized the place easily because it was the start of his new life. If he walked to the northwest, he’d end up in Rakushou. To the southwest, the port town that ships docked at. He’d never been there and he didn’t know how far it was. But it was there, as were many more port towns. The Kou Empire was the largest in the world, after all. He’d have explored those other towns if he hadn’t met Hakuryuu and chosen to stay in Rakushou instead.

He walked until the shore lapped at his feet. It was the edge of the empire that Hakuryuu hated so much, but he didn’t come so close. That was right, he didn’t like the ocean. Judar didn’t either. Especially now that he was out of time.

“You’re really selfish, too,” Judar said. “You’re the most selfish human that I’ve ever met.”

“You kill for sport, just like my mother. Shouldn’t the most selfish human be you?”

He turned to face Hakuryuu again, smiling at his wording. “You’re the smartest person I know. What do _you_ think?”

Hakuryuu’s eyes widened before his face scrunched up in anger. If he figured it out that fast, he must’ve suspected it for a long time after all. It was a wonder he hadn’t found an excuse to get rid of Judar sooner.

It was also disappointing. He could have taken another path if Hakuryuu had such a lukewarm reaction to the thought of Judar being a siren in the first place.

But it was good that Judar didn’t have to say it. It would have been annoying if his voice cracked. He took a few steps backwards to the ocean. It was enough distance to allow a quick escape if Hakuryuu had a change of heart. But he didn’t, so Judar continued.

“I learned how to use a new kind of magic recently. I set it up here. It’s probably the only spell in the world that can kill your mother.” Judar took his small staff, always kept within the knots of his robe, and held it with both hands. “But I didn’t want to have to use it. It’s a magic that interrupts every spell. No magic can exist here as soon as I cast it.”

Judar took a deep breath. “It’s meaningless to you humans, since you can’t use magic. I was really surprised to find a scroll talking about the concept. But I tried it out some and I think I got it to work. You’re no match for us normally because we’re loved by the rukh. But like this, she’ll just be a fish.”

Judar took a deep breath and triggered the barrier with his staff. It vibrated with the sand, resonating with all the points he set up in advance.

It became hard to breathe. His legs melted into one, and the thin covering of skin oozed off to mix with the natural oil of his tail. Judar allowed himself to fall onto his back and let the cold and salty water rush through the gills that ran up his chest.

He hated losing. He hated the ocean. He hated sirens and their fate of being both loved by the rukh and trapped by it.

Judar hadn’t caught his breath yet when he heard splashes coming towards him. He didn’t bother to raise his head to look at Hakuryuu.

The splashing stopped and he spoke. “Take off your clothes.”

“Don’t wanna.”

“…”

“Afraid your sword can’t cut through silk?”

Hakuryuu waded closer. He was probably past his knees in water now. Judar didn’t think he could swim. If he could, he probably wasn’t very skilled… but then again, he was Hakuryuu. He might have learned how just in case. He had all sorts of useless skills like that.

Hakuryuu moved a hand across the soaked fabric on Judar’s shoulder to take it off and see that he truly was a siren. Judar swam a little farther to try to get him to stop, but the loose fabric easily floated off towards the shore.

“What’s the point in looking at me?” Judar snapped. “Just tell me already. You don’t want a siren’s help, right?”

Hakuryuu waded deeper again. A part of Judar hoped that Hakuryuu would be taken by the current and eaten by the sea. But he wasn’t. This time he gripped Judar’s waist to keep him from swimming away and looked at his face instead of his tail.

“What were you trying to accomplish by coming to land?”

What he was trying to accomplish wouldn’t ever happen. It had been an impossible goal since the beginning.

It was something that Hakuryuu could probably understand, no, definitely understood, even though he was a human. He understood because despite everything, he took Judar in and let him lay in his bed. Allowed Judar to kiss him and even returned his affection in part. Hakuryuu didn’t have anyone else right now. That was why he hadn’t killed Judar yet. So he understood.

It was meaningless to try to explain it to someone who already understood. But he still stared and waited for an answer, even when Judar’s eyes filled with saltwater for the first time in many months.

Hakuryuu’s frown didn’t soften, and his grip didn’t get any looser. It was something that he never wanted to have to say to Hakuryuu’s face and Judar could feel his mouth choking on the words when they should have been easy. It pissed him off. His mouth that couldn’t even reach the low sounds of the human language, and his tail that couldn’t reach past the shore.

“This stupid thing,” Judar said, splashing his tail. “It’s so frustrating!”

That seemed to be a satisfactory answer for Hakuryuu. He tugged at Judar’s waist a little, held his shoulder with the other hand, and seemed to consider kissing Judar. He hesitated just long enough to change his mind. “Go back inside the ocean,” he said. “Never come here again.”

What could Judar do but swim away? He had no magic and the terrestrial edge of the barrier extended far into the trees.

For the first time since he gave up his legs, Judar looked in Hakuryuu’s eyes. He wasn’t letting Judar go out of pity, that much was obvious. He was hurt by the betrayal. Too hurt to consider accepting Judar’s aid but not hurt enough to kill him in anguish. That was too bad. If he were hurt enough to kill him, that would have been better and more interesting ending than what he would get by staying in the ocean.

“Like hell I’m going to stay there forever,” Judar spat.

He slipped under Hakuryuu’s grip and swam away. He swam under the surface and out of Hakuryuu’s view.

It wasn’t over yet. Hakuryuu hadn’t accomplished anything. He still had a use for Judar, even if he didn’t want to admit it. So he’d come back once he had as much magoi as he'd come with in the first place.

The first thing he had to do was get rid of the isolation barrier. He couldn’t have Hakuryuu trying to use his example to try to kill his mother on his own. Just removing the sea points would be enough to render the whole thing useless, so he tore down the twenty or so that dipped below the water.

Once that was taken care of, Judar left the shallow sea surrounding Rakushou. He swam until his stiff tail muscles protested, and longer until they felt like they would tear from the strain.

Only then did Judar allow himself to drift back up to the top. The scenery was unfamiliar, but it would be impossible to recognize the place from the top. After all, the only scenery in every direction was the grey sea. It moved in the same pattern as always, waves following each other endlessly to the shores. Once they reached the shores they would fade away in the sand.

He was far enough from that shore now that he could think.

Not that he had much to think about.

He didn’t want to be back in the sea. He wanted to be where he’d woken up again, though he knew even if he redid it the same thing would happen. Judar sighed.

Scheherazade lasted a full two hundred years in the human world and Judar didn't even last one. There must be a spell he didn't know to lessen the burden on his magoi.

He didn't want to go back to his colony. So instead he floated around the water's surface watching the seagulls fly aimlessly forward, magic formulas swirling in his head.

The isolation barrier worked because it used the rukh across a large area to create points that worked as a kind of signal jammer to stop any ongoing formulas within the range. Of course, it also prevented new formulas from starting. Even his borg didn't work in it.

If he could alter the technique to create a range where instead of stopping formulas, it continuously sustained his magic without his input, that would be ideal. But it was easier said than done.

The isolation barrier only covered a range of about the inner sanctuary of the palace. So he would be limited to about one wing even if he could do it. It would be useless - Judar never spent enough time in any wing to justify the effort testing formulas would be.

A cloud covered the sun. It was late enough in the year that it was enough to send shivers through his body. He would have to go back under soon.

He couldn't think of a way to make the spell he’d been using for legs more efficient. It was an old spell that’d probably been updated an endless amount of times already to be more efficient. There was nothing he could do to improve it further. Writing spells wasn’t his strong point.

If he could just cast a spell that would trigger his body to become a human body, physically, instead of needing to be sustained with magic…

That was impossible. What if he lost the ability to use magic and really did become a regular human? He breathed deeply through his lungs. There was no point to going back if he couldn’t use magic.

Judar turned over. He was still in relatively shallow water. Fish swam in the distance but none were stupid enough to swim too close to him. Before long the only movement in his line of sight was his rukh, dipping into the ocean gracefully and naturally without disturbing the surface.

He was alone. Even if he yelled no one would hear it or respond to it. There had nearly always been people around Judar - others in his colony, others in the palace, others in the streets of Rakushou. It never took too long to find someone. Even the time he’d spent walking after first surfacing didn’t last longer than a day. It wasn’t like now, where he could swim for miles and still see nothing more than fish and shrimp.

He swam in a daze. Something inside of him felt off. He had grown so used to the feeling of his altered flesh that his tail should have been stiff. It must have been stiff. The fact that it wasn’t made it feel like it wasn’t even his. It wasn't just the tail, either. The feeling of wrongness crept up his veins into his organs and mind.

There was no magic to heal his mind into something that could be satisfied. And there was no magic to make the sea beautiful to him. Everything was just a different shade of the same color and his cut gills didn’t have enough strength as they were.

He was alone now. It didn’t matter what he did. No one was around to judge if it was right or wrong. But it was boring.


	10. Chapter 10

Judar swam aimlessly for days, watching the bruises Hakuryuu had unintentionally left on his wrist fade into nothing. He had the time to waste.

There were lots of dangerous things in the shallow seas but he had a strong borg. Anything looking to take a bite out of him was easily taken care of.

There was more to do in the shallow seas than in the deep sea. Fish preferred seafloors littered with coral and danger instead of the colder and darker seas. But no matter how plentiful fish were, he was craving peaches instead.

Two weeks of swimming and Judar found a sunken ship. It broke up the landscape of fish in a way that was more jarring than exciting - it had been decomposing for some time, judging by its barnacle covered interiors. The only items that had survived for however many years it’d been sunken were from the kitchen. It was kinda cool that they were just like on the surface, if a little green, but Judar couldn’t think of any reason to carry a stove around. So he blew it up.

It just felt wrong that he went to the human world without bringing anything with him. Judar didn’t have a lot of important possessions apart from his jewelry. His clothes and mirror might have been the only ones. But he hadn’t taken the mirror and let the clothes float away - no, Hakuryuu might have taken the clothes just to make sure he didn’t try to re-enter the palace pretending like nothing had happened.

In one thousand years he might forget everything that happened in this past year, even if he went up to the surface again and again. That was why he would have liked it if he at least took his mirror. He cursed himself for not bringing it when he left with Hakuryuu. It wasn’t that he was feeling sentimental or anything, he just didn’t trust his memory.

Now that Judar was readjusted to the quiet and monotonous sea he felt his irritation skyrocket, and he took it out on whatever swam into his sight. It was good for killing time but didn’t do much to occupy his mind. He kept thinking about what must have been going on in the palace. Kougyoku was leaving to get married, and Hakuryuu would have to find a new strategy for killing his mother…

Well, he wouldn’t really have to. Judar would go back as soon as he was able. By then Hakuryuu’s desperation would probably get the best of him and he’d have to reconsider because it was impossible for a human to kill a siren. He needed Judar’s help to succeed. And Hakuryuu was probably already aware of that - he just needed time to think about it rationally.

Until then Judar needed to recover magoi. It had been strained inside of him for a long time and now that it was reaching a more comfortable level he was acutely aware of how unbearable it’d felt at its worst. It’d been easy to ignore in the human world, becoming painful only as quickly as he adjusted to the discomfort, but there were less distractions in the sea. He was aware of it. It’d probably been strained badly enough and long enough to cut his lifespan a few hundred years shorter, for what it was worth.

In addition to recovering, figuring out a more effective formula for walking on land would make things a lot easier. The problem was that Yunan’s formula was effective. It did exactly what it was supposed to without even hurting. It just wasn’t cost effective, and Judar couldn’t figure out how it could be. It was clear that Yunan’s main concern had been making it work, not using it permanently.

If Judar hadn’t been practicing magic so much to kill Hakuryuu’s mother, he probably would have been able to stay up longer. The spells wouldn’t have felt so restraining. They weren’t meant for something as intensive as killing another siren.

He watched his black rukh, jittery and loud, push through the water without upsetting the current.

“Are you still there?” Judar asked it.

It didn’t respond.

“What, did you lose interest? You got all quiet near the end there.”

Again, no answer. Fine. It wasn’t like he really wanted to talk to it anyway. If he was going to talk to anyone, he’d like it if it were Hakuryuu.

But Hakuryuu had also lost interest, hadn’t he? Judar doubted that he’d ever be able to return to how things were, not catching Hakuryuu’s interest but not losing it either. Hakuryuu wouldn’t trust him when he surfaced again. He could hold a grudge far too well for that.

It was too bad. Judar had really enjoyed himself. 

He probably shouldn't have used so much magoi for a human. Something like this had to happen eventually. He’d known that since the beginning.

It just… happened. One day he was in the sea and the next he was on land. In that new world, Hakuryuu was the first person he met. The first person to talk to him and show him what life was like on land, who felt warm on cold nights and accepted his affection in part. Judar became attached. Even now he was attached. He wanted to go back to land to see Hakuryuu again. 

But Hakuryuu wasn’t important enough for Judar to be selfless. His plan to go and see Hakuryuu, knowing he had no desire to associate with him again, was selfish. It didn’t matter.

He focused his energy on killing sharks instead of thinking in pointless circles.

It took another week for Judar’s irritation to fade into something manageable.

Stubbornness was the only thing keeping him bumming around taking his anger out on fish. It was doing nothing but hampering his ability to save magoi.

The best thing to do was to go back to his colony. Not permanently - just long enough to get some information from Scheherazade and Yunan and save some magoi was fine. Maybe Scheherazade used an entirely different spell than Yunan for legs. It was worth investigating.

Sirens had a strong homing instinct. Something inside of their brains behind the memories that they could recall could understand where home was. It was difficult to avoid that instinct when travelling. If he chose a direction at random to swim in, it would probably be the way to his colony. Judar had been avoiding it by chasing after fish and other sea life the past month, but with a goal in mind, he decided to follow it.

Following his homing instinct was a strange thing. He had no way to know for sure if the direction he was swimming in was correct. All that he knew was that it was the direction he chose to swim in.

As Judar swam downwards, the sun’s light thinned out. He followed the continental shelf, watching the sand change texture and consistency as his only form of entertainment. Swimming was boring. Schools of fish didn’t normally enter the sea’s twilight, and when they did, it was only for protection from the predators of the light.

Little shrimp that had no chance of escaping him were all he ate for days. The faint glow of the sun faded into nothingness. Judar used light magic to see - it attracted many small fish and he wondered why no one in his colony thought of it before. Or maybe they had but decided it was too boring to hunt like that.

The rukh was thinner than on the surface and Judar mediated the pressure with magic without giving it any thought, an instinct every deep sea siren was born with. It wasn’t exciting like exploring a new part of Rakushou, but the unusual shape of rocks was enough to keep him from drifting off. 

After hours of swimming in that eternal half-light he felt something. Something strange. He couldn’t see it but felt it pass through his eyes and, when he turned to try to make out the shape, he felt it in the depths of his stomach. The rukh was strange.

It was all black. Rukh that didn’t belong to life but to nothingness, the same color of his own. He reached out towards one and tried to grab it. Rukh didn’t exist in the same side of reality as he did, so his hand passed over it without feeling anything but its power.

It was strong. Something he could use. Rukh more like his own than any other.

With his breath caught in his throat, Judar motioned for the dark rukh to light his surroundings. They obeyed quickly and efficiently.

Once the area was more brightly lit, Judar understood why the rocks had seemed so odd. Strange lines and scorch marks littered their surfaces, almost like human symbols in their bizarre patterns. Something had happened.

He swam cautiously - though he’d been swimming without a care in the world just moments ago, there were too many strange things to ignore and head back on his way. The damage looked old and it was unlikely that there was anything that could harm him now. Even so, the whole area put him on edge.

First of all, there was the black rukh. No matter how he tried to come at that subject, it was odd. It had always been odd. Why should he have black rukh, and nothing else? It made no sense.

But here was something else that had black rukh. Not a living being, but a place. It was possible that the rukh had once belonged to something alive, and for some reason stagnated instead of moving to something else as part of the great flow. If the stagnation was the cause of its unusual color, then that would make sense. Except that his rukh was the same color.

Lower in the shelf, the outer rocks were spaced widely enough for him to slip inside. Once his light source followed, Judar was left breathless.

It had been lived in by a siren. Not recently, but once long ago. There was a shell tied with a rotting ribbon from the human world. He tapped the shell lightly. Many sirens loved the sound that shells made when tapped, so it was normal to keep some at home. The shell did have a nice sound, but the tap was enough to finally cause it to fall from its string, slowly, as all things in the deep sea went.

What kind of a siren lived there was irrelevant. What was relevant was how long ago they had lived there. Judar left that hole and entered another. 

Little trinkets from a shipwreck. A tarnished silver pendant that a human must have cherished once, half stuck between cracks in the rocks. Judar picked it up and turned it around in his hands. It wasn’t the same style as his own jewelry, but it felt heavy in a way that silver shouldn’t have. He shook it and something clicked against the inside edge of the pendant.

It wasn’t a good place to open it. Many human trinkets weren’t waterproof, and he didn’t want to lose whatever was inside to his impatience. So he tied it around his wrist, pleased that the chain held up well enough for a tight knot, and left for another hole.

Each home was different but they were all sparse. Many were blocked by broken pieces of rock that he assumed had something to do with the scorch marks. Anything Judar found was either so common for a siren home that he didn’t bother taking it or stuck somewhere in a hard to reach place - he had no tools, and besides, the cracks between rocks were narrow. Destroying them entirely was the only way he could get between them, and doing that for every little trinket here would take far too much magoi.

Just as he was getting ready to leave, he noticed something bright reflecting from the corner of his eye. It was in too small of an area for his arm to reach through, but it eventually reflected the light of the rukh once more.

Interest piqued, Judar made an exception. He pushed on the rock above it, urging the black rukh to do the same. The rock was crushed easily by their power.

It didn’t take long with the rock out of the way for Judar to find what he was looking for. It was a scale. He picked it up and turned it over, feeling the texture. Unlike a scale which was attached to a body, it was a little dull with age. Likely decomposing. But if the scale was decomposing so slowly despite being unprotected in the middle of the ocean, then…

Judar dug around in the pocket of debris he’d spotted the scale in. Tiny pieces of rock were mixed in with larger rocks and little bits of clam shells. Finally he found what he was looking for.

A bone too big to belong to a deep sea fish, in too strange of a place to be from a shallow feeder. Irrevocable proof of what this was in the form of a siren bone.

The colony couldn’t have been abandoned long ago. Judar had vaguely understood the reason he found it since he entered. It was his homing instinct. The place that the bottom of his mind had been silently urging him to return to since he’d started swimming: “home.”

He didn’t recognize it. It didn’t feel like home, either. Nothing about it was familiar but the things that were the same as is in the colony he had grown up in.

The black rukh was pretty familiar too. But the color wasn’t all that important. What was important was that it was strong. Rukh was thinner at the bottom of the ocean than on the surface, and the amount of stray black rukh present would have been impressive even if it were white. But he was able to use magic just the same as if there had been thousands more.

Judar held out his hand. The black rukh gathered easily and their weightless strength felt dependable. No memories followed. The rukh had no consciousness or will of its own, unlike the white rukh from recently departed humans. They must have already lost their sense of self, if they’d ever had one to begin with.

Judar took another quick look around the area to make sure he didn’t miss anything before he was off again. If his homing instinct had led him to the wrong place, it may be difficult to get back to where the others were.

His light magic would probably attract any sirens if he got close enough. That meant that he could happen upon a colony he was unfamiliar with. Fighting a colony, fun as it sounded, would be a colossal waste of magoi. 

In coastal waters, that would have been a serious problem. Sirens living along the coast faced the same problems as fish living in shallow waters - predators. Humans. One human couldn’t kill a siren unless they were weak both in magoi and magical ability. But a boat of humans could do it for sure. He had seen all the siren scales in Rakushou’s markets. It wasn’t difficult to kill and skin a siren with the proper equipment and skillset.

As a result, coastal sirens were much more capable of fighting on average. It was fortunate that the seas near Rakushou tended towards clear shallowness. No siren could live where they couldn’t hide, so most retreated to the lower areas of the sea. 

Now, as Judar swam deeper into the lightless midnight of the sea, there was nothing to worry about. He kept his light magic active confidently. Squid became more dominant than fish - a welcome change. As a child he’d spent hours chasing them down with his short tail. Now it was easy.

If he were lucky, he might find a whale to kill. Their large bodies were filled with magoi and it was worth it if he didn’t get distracted from his goal.

It had to be around here somewhere - a couple days of travelling, tops.

Though Judar had sworn only months ago that he would never return to his colony, he was returning now. It was the smartest move for the time being. He would return, save his energy as much as possible, and compare formulas with the others. Efficient magic was a must - living on land was not his only goal. He still had to kill Hakuryuu's mother.

Hakuryuu… was he still angry about the whole siren thing? It was hard to tell how much time had already passed now that Judar was in a place where day and night couldn't reach. A month or two, give or take. That was his best guess.

Whether Hakuryuu was angry or not, he was probably doing the same things as usual. Studying, training, more studying. Hakuryuu's best defense against all the things he hated was staying busy. But there would be times when that wouldn’t work. Times where he would try to sleep and remember that he slept so close to a siren that he could hear it breathe. Judar smiled. Even if Hakuryuu remembered him as something repulsive, it was fine. It didn’t make him want to go back to Hakuryuu any less.

Everything was so fun in the human world. Everything was bright and colorful and it didn’t matter if he was shaking and at his limit because it was all living.

Peacefully drifting at the bottom of the sea was as boring as it got. There was nothing he would rather do now than talk with Hakuryuu, just like before…

“Hey! Who’s there!”

Judar closed his eyes. The voice was so familiar that it was almost grating. It seemed like that old abandoned colony was closer than he expected. Maybe it was only natural. They had to be close or Scheherazade and the others wouldn’t have noticed the colony’s destruction. He should’ve tried to find it sooner.

“I said, who’s there!”

Judar stretched and turned to look in the direction of the voice. They’d never seen each other in the light so it was only natural that he didn’t recognize Judar. He couldn’t recognize the smaller siren either. Only his voice.

“What the hell, I’m gone for a few months and you all forget about me?”

“Judar!? Huh, wait, what’s a month?”

“Come on, Aladdin. Aren’t you too old to not know something as simple as that?”

Judar looked around, trying to perceive the barrier. It was strange that Aladdin, the youngest, was outside of it.

“…Are you looking for the barrier? It's down.”

“Why? Scheherazade finally get tired of babying all of you?”

“No. She's unwell.”

Judar huffed. Just his luck. “I need to talk to her. Show me where she is.”

Aladdin didn’t move. His eyes, squinted, were following the lights Judar was keeping around his rukh.

“Hey, haven’t you ever seen magic before? I want to see Scheherazade.”

“Why is your rukh black?”

“Because it is.”

“It's always been like that?”

“Yeah. Always.”

Aladdin took a moment to flick his eyes over Judar’s rukh with a frown, but didn’t respond. Instead he turned away and swam in the direction of the colony proper.

Judar didn’t recognize his surroundings until he was in the middle of the colony. Everything seemed different in the light, just the same as how the palace halls felt different in the morning and evening.

The light was bothering Aladdin, too - he was swimming slower than usual, taking everything in with his eyes, and almost swimming off in the opposite direction from Scheherazade’s home before correcting himself.

“What, you forget how to swim? Is a little light all it takes to distract you?” Judar asked.

Aladdin ignored him.

Scheherazade’s home was filled with trinkets from above. A metal staff stood out the most, held tightly between her small fingers - it was taller than Scheherazade herself, much larger than what Judar had been using to conduct his magic. It was impressive and almost looked fit for royalty, now that he got a good look at it.

Scheherazade herself seemed weak. She was old and for Judar’s whole life had never been in top condition. She would get worse, get better, then get worse again. It was pitiful while it lasted but she would likely recover again soon. Sirens usually didn’t die from internal factors.

But this was the first time she’d let down the barrier without someone else taking the burden for her temporarily. Even if she wasn’t tired of babying Aladdin and Titus, the others sure were.

“Judar,” she mumbled before he had the chance to announce his presence. “I’m glad you came back.”

“Yeah?”

“Did you have fun up there with the humans?”

“Um… yeah.”

She smiled weakly.

Now that he was here, he didn’t really know what to say. Even if he asked about the magic, in her current state she would be unable to replicate it. From the corner of his eye, Judar noticed Aladdin still watching him intently.

What was that kid’s problem? Judar was about to ask, irritated, when Scheherazade’s soft voice distracted him.

“What country did you visit?” Scheherazade asked. “Or did you travel the world…?”

“I just stayed in the Kou Empire the whole time.”

“I’ve never heard of it before.”

“It’s a pretty new country. The second emperor’s still on the throne. Oh, but there was a smaller Kou before that. Way smaller.”

"Did you ever hear anything about Reim?"

“Reim, uhh… Isn’t that on the other side of the world from here? On the other continent?”

“So it's still standing. Thank goodness.”

Judar didn’t know much about Reim other than that it was far away. Not one of the countries that the Kou Empire would subjugate any time soon, but one of the few that still had the potential to give even Kouen a headache.

Maybe he’d heard about the food or something, though. He had vague memories of being told that was where bread came from. As soft as bread looked, he couldn’t stand the texture once it was inside his mouth. It was deceptive.

He told Scheherazade about bread and she laughed. She looked much more energetic after hearing about Reim, and Judar’s curiosity was killing him.

“So what’s the big deal about Reim, anyway?”

“Even now, I must feel that it’s precious to me. The land where I surfaced for the first time, and the country that I helped with all my strength for centuries.”

“Hmm. First I’ve heard that one. Why’d you leave it to set up camp here then?

“It becomes very sad to live on the surface. I lived there for two hundred years… A span of life that no human could live no matter how long they struggled.”

Hakuryuu’s life wouldn’t make it to two hundred years, that was for sure. Every second that Judar was away was a second that slipped off of Hakuryuu’s lifespan. He knew that already and didn’t need Scheherazade to waste time telling him again. But in her illness she kept talking, taking no notice of Judar’s rukh.

“The first human I met was bright,” Scheherazade said. “Every day felt like it was shining when I was with him. When he died I swore to protect everything he stood for. And I did, for a time. I protected his children, and their children, and their children… everyone in the world he created until I had nothing left to protect them with.”

Many of Scheherazade’s stories of humans were about that man. She must have really loved him, more than anything. He glanced at her tail and sure enough, she was missing a scale. She undoubtedly gave it to him.

“How long has it been since that guy died?”

“I lost count long ago.”

“How old are you, anyway?”

“I lost count… Our lives are too large to count with the small numbers that humans use.”

Someone bumped against the wall of Scheherazade’s room, then poked their head in. “Judar? That was Judar’s voice, right?” The excitement in Titus’s voice was so obvious that it bordered on obnoxious.

“That’s a way better reaction. Take notes, Aladdin.”

“How was the surface?” Titus asked. “Did you see any humans? What were they like?”

Scheherazade coughed, bubbles escaping her mouth. Her gills heaved trying to recover the lost air. Titus and Aladdin hurried to her side.

“Lady Scheherazade, are you alright?”

“I’m fine… Don’t worry about this old lady too much.”

“Of course,” Titus said. “We’ll let you sleep as much as you need. Come, Judar. I want to hear of your adventures!”

With nothing better to do, Judar followed. Titus generally wasn’t bad company. If only the kid didn’t ask so many damn questions, spending time together might have been pretty fun.

“I had no idea this was what you looked like,” Titus said. “I imagined you more… hmm…”

“More!?”

Titus laughed cheerfully. “That’s right! Your tail doesn’t match your eyes at all. And I can hardly see your hair.”

“Like you should talk. What’s this mess?” Judar asked, pointing between Titus’s blue eyes and purple tail. “And on top of it all, you’re blond. Everything clashes.”

“What color are my eyes?”

“Blue. Like the sea’s rukh sometimes shines.”

“Wow! And yours are… um, was that color called again?”

“Red.”

“Red! They’re red!”

Judar rolled his eyes. Titus was fascinated by the strange motion but was soon distracted by his light magic. “What are those lights? Can you show me how to do it?”

For all Judar’s complaining, it felt good to show off. Soon Titus was the one summoning the lights.

It was convenient. As little work as they were, any magic took magoi to use. It was better if Titus did all his work for him.

“Tell me about the surface,” Titus repeated. “I’ve wondered what you were seeing since you first left.”

“The surface, huh… You’ll have to be more specific.”

“Tell me everything!”

“Hey, I said _more_ specific. Not less.”

“Um, um, from the beginning! Did you really make it out of the sea with your tail?”

“Nah. You really can’t move on dry sand without legs. So I used a super complicated spell and made real cool legs.”

“Really? The humans thought they were cool?”

“W, well… generally, humans don’t show them to each other.”

“What happened after you made legs? Did a human find you?”

“…Kind of. Do you know what a prince is?”

“Yes! From the story of the siren who fell in love with a prince!”

“Yeah, like that. But my prince was way stronger and cooler than that guy, and…”

It was easy to relive something as vivid as the human world through a story. Judar could understand why Scheherazade had taken to talking about it so much - it was something that almost seemed to change the emptiness of their colony into something full. Titus had no idea what the human world was like for real, so Judar changed every few details to make himself sound cooler. Titus was excited enough to believe anything. It was fun.

It also felt very far away all of the sudden. Here he was, at the bottom of the sea, wasting time waiting for Scheherazade to recover and talking about the surface. Would it already be spring again by the time he made it to the human world for the second time? He hoped not. He wanted to see snow and learn how to use a stove for heat. Hakuryuu said fire magic would probably just burn the palace down, after all.

Many hours must have passed. It was a long story for the short amount of time that Judar had spent on the surface. Titus was surprised too, and kept asking about it - “how long was a day again?”

Of course, Judar couldn’t tell the whole story. He had no desire to talk about the people he’d killed and kept it tame. Even the part about helping Hakuryuu kill his mom was removed. What was left was exactly what Titus wanted to hear.

“Amazing! Do you think I’d find wonderful things if I went up, just like you and Lady Scheherazade?”

“Maybe, but you’d have to find a palace before you can find a prince. And no taking mine! I found him first.”

“What’s a palace again?”

Judar groaned. “Don’t you know anything? Go and ask someone else, my throat’s all sore now.”

“How long were you swimming for?”

“I dunno. A long time. And there’s nothing good to eat once you swim farther than the light can reach. Not looking forward to sleeping on rocks, either…”

“…Why did you come back if you don’t like it here?”

“Magoi ran out. I need a better spell for legs. One that doesn’t mess with my magoi so much.”

“Oh… you’re going back?”

“Duh. Nothing’s more boring than the bottom of the sea.”

Titus took a deep breath and took Judar’s hands. “Please take me. I want to see the human world that Lady Scheherazade loves so dearly.”

“That place is on the other side of the world, you know.”

“Then please show me the way there.”

“You can’t even speak the human language, and you’ve got no common sense. Someone’ll skin you alive for sure. Human love our scales. Even ugly purple ones like yours.”

“I want to see it,” Titus repeated. “You went to Yunan, right? Fine then. I will too.”

With that, the Titus swam away. 

Though trying to count days was meaningless with no sun, weeks must have passed. He did nothing but wait. Scheherazade was recovering slowly but steadily. It was as if hearing that Reim was still prospering had given her the will to live once again, and she was able to reactivate the barrier.

With the barrier active, it was the best place to store magoi.

Titus began doing the same. Inside of that little earring, a present from Scheherazade, enough magoi to last on land for a few months slept.

Without knowing the human language, going to the surface could be fatal. Anyone knew that. So Scheherazade, worried as she was, eventually offered lessons.

It was funny because Scheherazade’s words were very archaic. Only old scrolls really talked like that. Judar didn’t tell them how outdated their speech was. It would be funnier when Titus figured it out on the surface.

Compared to himself, Titus was being much more open about leaving. It was something that Judar hadn’t wanted to talk about because he didn’t want anyone to try to stop him. But Scheherazade, seeing that she would be unable to change their minds, was being supportive instead.

However, Scheherazade’s support was directed mostly at Titus. With her body in better shape she took to being more stern with Judar. It was less trouble to tag along with hunting to avoid her nagging.

“Do this, do that, like I’m some kind of a maid!” Judar complained to Aladdin. “I’m not gonna help Titus on the surface. What’s dumber than putting a bunch of sirens together in the middle of a city?”

In a hunt for giant squid, he’d normally stand still. But technically the kill was Aladdin’s responsibility, so it didn’t matter how much he complained and flitted about.

“Judar, be still. We’ll never find one at this rate.”

“Just shock the whole area. We’ve got our borg.”

Aladdin stopped swimming. For a second Judar thought he was really going to do it, but instead he just stared. “We’re far enough away from the others that they won’t be able to hear us now.”

“So?”

“I wasn’t going to ask. I was going to wait for you to tell us. But I’m starting to think that you never will.”

“Just spit it out.”

“Your rukh changed. It became a little scary while you were away, didn’t it? I don’t know why that happened, and it looks like it’s not something you’re going to tell us. But if you try to hurt anyone, I’m going to stop you.”

After Aladdin’s strange behavior, Judar wasn’t surprised that he had something he’d been wanting to say. He fixed a dumb smile. “Why would I do that?”

“You’ve been thinking about it. I watched you. Your rukh was so excited, knowing you could kill Scheherazade when she was ill if you wanted to. And you’ve been thinking about it every time you see Titus, too, haven't you?”

It wasn’t like that… 

No, it was, wasn’t it? It didn’t matter why he needed magoi. And it didn’t matter that Scheherazade wasn’t happy, having long outlived her role in the world.

The reason didn’t really matter at all. What mattered was the result. He had thought about it. But it wasn’t something he would really do. There were plenty of other places he could get magoi. And there was no point in taking it if when he went to the surface he was alone. He didn’t have the resolve Hakuryuu had. He couldn’t do something like that.

He could fake it, though. With ease. It’d be easier if he could fake it until it were true.

“…Not everyone can see into the rukh like you, you know?”

“You won’t try anything, right?”

“I promise, I promise.”

Aladdin didn’t seem convinced, but they resumed hunting anyway. Once they were both focused it wasn’t too difficult to track down a squid to kill.

What Aladdin said was true. Sirens had a huge amount of magoi. There was no better energy source. But he wasn’t going to do it. 

His colony had nothing to do with his problems.

Actually, they’d done their best to help him: after his colony was killed, he was taken in. If they hadn’t done that he would have died.

Died and his rukh would have gone elsewhere. It wouldn't have been stuck inside his body with a tail anymore.

No, that was the wrong way of thinking of it. He knew it was. Saving someone wasn’t damning them. There was nothing keeping Judar from being happy in the ocean but his own mind.

It wasn’t even being a siren that he was so disgusted with in particular. Using magic was great. It was the nothingness of the ocean. Being there filled him with a disgusting feeling, the same disgusting feeling that he used to justify killing humans.

Whether he was going to use them or not, he had set up a few isolation points. Just to get used to making them, trying to perfect them. He’d need it and it would be lucky if he could test it on a siren. And they had so, so much magoi.

But it wasn’t urgent. He’d make it up to see Hakuryuu again whether he killed someone in his colony or not. There was no guarantee that even if he got up faster, Hakuryuu would be ready to talk to him again.

Yeah. That was what it came down to. If he had the assurance that Hakuryuu was ready, it wouldn’t matter even if some sirens he’d lived with three thousand feet under the sea died by his hand. Because he’d have Hakuryuu then. But not knowing if it was time yet or not, there just wasn’t any point in it.

Now that Hakuryuu knew, running out of magoi again might not be as big of a deal. Especially if he didn’t care anymore if Judar just recharged it by killing humans.

Hakuryuu would probably reach that point of not caring, sooner or later. He understood Judar’s logic in the first place. He wasn’t been ready to accept that it was true yet.

How long would it take? There was no way to know. He wasn’t Hakuryuu, after all. He didn’t know exactly where the trauma of his brothers’ murder ended and where his hatred so strong it brought him to plan the murder of his mother started. To Hakuryuu, they were still the same thing. 

Such a long time had already passed. How much had the ever-changing human world changed? On the surface he could count with the rise and fall of the sun. In the ocean, even the times he slept were inconsistent. With no crickets to tell him when to sleep, he stayed awake until he was long past the point of tired, then slept long enough for the others to eat half a giant squid. 

He was eager to get back to the surface and see if Hakuryuu had changed his mind yet. If Scheherazade was too busy babying Titus, he’d ask Yunan first.

Yunan’s home was just as in the middle of nowhere as he remembered it. Why Yunan felt the need to live on the other end of the barrier from the rest of them, he had no idea.

Judar entered, and at first thought Yunan was gone. He tapped on the shell hanging from rock in an effort to get his attention. “Hey, old man. You didn’t actually go somewhere, did you?”

“…No. I was just so shocked I forgot to greet you.”

“What the hell, you knew I’ve been back. Didn’t you?”

“I did. But I didn’t expect you to visit. Were you looking for another formula from me?”

“Yeah. Tell me all of them,” Judar said.

“And what will I get in return?”

“…You want something?”

“Anyone would want something to do a favor for someone with such irritated rukh.”

“Okay. Bye.”

“Judar, wait! I was joking. Titus told me a story about you.”

“What a gossip.”

“All that you need to understand for body altering magic to work is how human bodies work, and how our bodies work,” Yunan said. “You’re a jerk so I’m not going to show you how. But I’m sure you can figure it out.”

“…Okay. Thanks. That’s useless.”

Yunan made a face. “Remind me why you’re in the ocean again? You must have obligations in the human world by now.”

“I plan on going back, no worries.”

He could have figured that out on his own. More than that, it seemed like he was making Yunan nervous. Had he overheard his conversation with Aladdin somehow? Not that it mattered. He would be out as soon as he could.

Judar left with the feeling that Yunan wasn’t telling him something. There would have been no reason to tell him to come back if he wanted to learn the rest of the magic if he wasn’t going to tell him after all.

Scheherazade had surely recovered enough to start talking magic. She was telling another story about humans to Titus and Aladdin when Judar joined them. He listened for a little. She was talking about that guy again, whatever his name was. Titus’s light magic made it easy to make out her gentle smile.

‘The brave king fought with all his might, and at last the town was saved from bandits. He returned the stolen goods to their owners, and distributed the bandits’ food to the hungry children. Everyone’s rukh sang together in love, and…”

Judar raised an eyebrow. Did humans like that really exist?

“Judar, I hear your rukh disagreeing. Could it be that you never met a bandit while you were up there?”

“The capital’s protected enough that bandits couldn’t come near it. They’d be skewered through the ass faster than they could take a purse.”

“Don’t speak so violently in front of Aladdin.”

Aladdin didn’t know what a skewer was and she knew it. “Whatever. Hey, Scheherazade. You were up in the human world for a real long time, right?”

"It was a long time ago…”

“But you must remember how you did it. What spell did you use?”

“The same as yours, I'm sure.”

”No you didn’t,” Judar argued. “I’m strong. Why could you stay for hundreds of years when I couldn’t?”

Scheherazade just smiled. “Perhaps you cast it wrong. Life magic never was your strong suit.”

That pissed him off. Was she trying to make him mad? Of course he cast it right. “Is that some kind of joke?”

“You had enough magoi to stay on the surface for years. I felt it.”

“Are you accusing me now, or something?”

“Your body knows better than you do, and it knew that you needed to return to the sea. That is all.”

“The fuck is that supposed to mean…”

Scheherazade motioned for Titus and Aladdin to leave. Aladdin left obediently, but Titus tried to stay.

“Don't worry,” Scheherazade said. “We won't fight. No magic strong enough to break a borg can exist within the barrier. Go with Aladdin.”

Titus left, the lights following. Judar didn’t bother to relight the sea.

“…Judar,” Scheherazade started, her voice gentle once more. “I apologize. From the time you came to our colony, I was unable to think of you as one of us. I failed to treat you as I should have and couldn’t see you as my child. Your rukh that none of us could understand scared me, even though you were nothing more than an infant. I couldn’t show you any love as you were leaving. I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t need anything from you anyway. What, do you think I’m still a snotty brat?”

“You are a child. You haven’t lived one hundred years yet, much less one thousand. It is a child’s curiosity that draws you to the surface and a child’s cruelty that allows you to treat humans as if they’re dolls you can break to steal the magoi of.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Judar asked. “To humans, bugs are powerless and short-lived. To us that’s humans. Particularly interesting bugs that can be squashed when it’s convenient.”

“I wonder why it is that your rukh don’t sound as if they agree with your words?”

Judar frowned. “What’re you trying to say?”

“The human world is captivating. It draws us like moths to a flame, and drives us to do things we never would have imagined doing. I understand that as well as you. It makes us desperate, and afterwards fills us with grief and remorse. So if you killed as a result of that captivation… I can forgive it.”

“I don’t need your forgiveness.”

“…You shouldn’t return,” Scheherazade said quietly. “I couldn’t stop you from seeing the human world, just as I can’t stop Titus. But that it isn’t a world we can become a part of.”

“Like you’re one to talk, committing to a human like that. Didn’t anyone tell you they die faster than whales?”

“They don’t need us,” Scheherazade said. “No matter if you think of them as weak and short-lived creatures, they don’t need us. They don’t need us to fall in love with them or commit to them, either.”

Judar laughed derisively. “Are you seriously telling me going up in the first place was wrong? You’re pretty hypocritical for someone who’s had hundreds of years to sit on it.”

“It’s the truth. Humans don’t need our power. They don’t need us. In hundreds of years, you will be mature enough to realize. Humans can live without us. We don’t need to meddle in their destinies. No matter how much we want to, it’s only our selfish desires.”

“What’s wrong with being selfish?”

“We are too powerful to live for only ourselves. We owe our power to the rukh around us. We’re only borrowing that power. It would be irresponsible to use it for our selfish goals.”

That pissed him off. “It’s my life. If you have no magic to show me, I don’t have to stay here a second longer.”

“If it’s one year or one thousand years, you will understand and return. When that time comes, I’ll welcome you properly. Like I hadn’t been able to when you were just a child.”

“I won’t come back. This was the last time. I won’t be like you, trying to bottle up my selfishness at the bottom of the sea.”

“…I have no such selfish desires. I only wish to protect my colony. And if need be, I will protect it from you.”

Judar smiled. “I thought Aladdin was the one who was messing with the isolation points. Oh well. You’ll still be here in a few hundred years if I need the magoi.”

He’d saved enough magoi to make legs. That was all he needed. It didn’t matter what Scheherazade or anyone else said. He could be as selfish as he wanted because it was his life.

If he chose to, he could ruin the human world. Burn it or freeze it or strike every surface with lightning until nothing was left. Magic could be combined in many grotesque ways just as it could be used for good in many ways. He wouldn’t do it, but he was able to. If he wanted to he could do anything.

He could go back to the human world to live in it pretending to be human again if he wanted to as well. He could start fresh and find a new city, a new country to lend his power to, not stopping until every greedy desire was fulfilled with magic that humans never should have seen. He wouldn’t, though. He didn’t want to.

What he did want to do was return to the Kou Empire and the prince who was eager to exact his revenge no matter what it took. Hakuryuu wouldn’t be able to accomplish his goal without Judar, and it had been long enough that someone as smart as him should’ve figured that out already. Humans were incapable of killing a siren alone. So he would offer his power in exchange for a front seat to the consequences.

Judar’s life was no longer tied to the bottom of the sea by his tail. It was a life that he was free to live selfishly, and he would do so. He didn't want to live a life like Scheherazade’s, hiding from pain without experiencing pleasure.

And since it was his life, he would do as many selfish things as he wanted. He’d help Hakuryuu until he died, doing the same selfish things that Scheherazade was unable to do but must have wanted as much as he wanted to return. He didn’t want to miss another second.

That was the point of being alive - to satisfy himself. The deep sea just wasn’t satisfying. It was the surface that captivated him. He would go back by any means necessary.


	11. Chapter 11

It took a long time to find a ship.

At first Judar thought he’d just find Rakushou in the same way as he’d found his colony. It would have been easier if he could - it felt like home to him. But it didn’t work that way. He wasn’t born there, and he’d gotten there by following a ship in the first place. It probably wasn’t the closest stretch of land to his colony at all. He’d use a transfer circle to make it, but he wanted to save some more magoi before creating his legs. Transfer circles weren’t exactly cost efficient, cool as they were. And he needed clothes. If he could isolate a member of a ship’s crew, that’d be the easiest way. 

When he finally did find a ship, it was one that didn’t fly the Kou flag. He stared, turned about where the flag might have been from in his head, but couldn’t put his finger of it. The sailors spoke of home - warmer, and evidently better than the Kou Empire where they were currently headed for trade.

It didn’t matter where they were from as long as they were headed to Kou. Judar used sound magic to make it easier to hear their conversation. Half of the crew had been to the empire before, but a few of them were full of questions. It was strange hearing people who had never been to Kou speak of it. Were human countries really so different from each other that they weren’t sure if they’d be able to stomach the local cuisine?

The captain thought the guards of Kou were intimidating. The merchants thought it was bad business but had always sold to Balbadd, now nothing more than another corner of Kou. Was that where they were headed?

That was annoying. He didn’t really want to go to Balbadd. It was on the other side of the empire from Rakushou. If that was where he ended up, he’d take a transfer circle for sure.

He wanted to ask if that was where they were going but he could only float along the edge of the ship, just out of view, listening and waiting. It was boring. Sometimes he drifted off and woke up somewhere he could be seen from the deck, in plain sight if only the sailors thought to look. Other times he stayed awake for days straight, listening for anything that could tell him the direction of Rakushou.

Realistically, he could force the information out of them before murdering the crew. But they could always lie, or worse, be trained to net sirens. There were twenty three humans on board if he was counting right, enough to skin him with ease if they knew what they were doing. And they probably did - it was likely that none of them would ever have to work again if they sold his scales. Maybe they’d even pull the hair from his scalp and make an elegant wig. The thought was enough to keep Judar from doing something stupid.

Though if the boat continued at its annoyingly slow pace he might test his luck.

While Judar was still trying to figure out whether to stay or go, the weather answered for him.

The sky darkened to the gray of the sea, clouds lowering into fog. Judar would have swam closer to the ship if it had been safe to avoid losing it, but the fog sent the waves into a panic. They rose, slamming into the sides of the ship as hard as they could, forcing water over the deck.

Judar watched from his place drifting in the waves, fascinated. It had never occurred to him to wonder how shipwrecks happened. Now, as he watched the waves crash harder and harder into the side of the boat that was quickly filling with rain water as well as salt water, he understood.

A dark speck flashed on the deck of the ship. At first Judar thought it was just some rukh, but when he looked more closely it was clearly the crouched figure of a human.

Oh, this would be good. He grinned and swam closer, careful to pay attention to the rhythm of the waves. No use in bruising himself up over it.

The rain carried a subtle heat that wasn’t lost even as it gained momentum. That momentum pushed again and again, never giving the boat enough time to steady itself completely. Judar almost thought that he’d missed it until it happened.

All at once the human lost grip of the edge of the boat and fell into the sea. Any sounds he made were muted by the rain, and he was easily caught and lulled into the sea by another wave crashing into the ship's edge.

Judar dove. He saw it almost instantly. The human was still trying to swim up to the surface, but was failing pretty horribly in his anxiety. Up close, he was pretty burly. The terrified face of a man fallen overboard didn't really suit him. Judar grabbed his arms and wasn’t surprised when the human tried to fight him. His eyes were tightly shut, but by the way he struggled, it was clear that he realized he was being taken in by a creature of the sea.

Using strength magic, Judar was able to tear the human away from the boat’s edge. It would be troublesome if he drowned, so he tried to stay as close to the surface as possible. The human’s coughing every time his mouth was fully out of the water quickly became annoying.

“Will you just shut up already!” Judar growled. He motioned to the sea's rukh to calm down. “I need some space if I’m gonna get anything out of this!”

The surrounding rukh quieted a noticeable amount, but that only made the man’s coughing more annoying. “Oh, and get him some air too, while you’re at it,” Judar said.

The rukh complied but all it did was make the sailor’s coughs sound worse than ever. Judar realized a minute too late that what he should have used was life magic, not wind magic - not that his low affinity for the rukh of the living would have helped him much.

Despite the odds, the man lived. Maybe human bodies were more resilient than he gave them credit for. The storm lasted several hours, but in reality the human only spent a small portion of that time in it; Judar’s magic could calm the area around him with relative ease, and he made liberal use of the water rukh’s obedience to keep the human from drowning.

After a storm the sea always seemed calmer than it had ever been, like a child sleeping soundly after a tantrum. The human didn’t regain consciousness until the sun peaked out under the bottom of the storm clouds to set for the day. Even after he woke he was hardly aware of his surroundings. Judar had been in a similar position to the human once and wondered if Hakuryuu had been as irritated then as he was now.

Probably. Hakuryuu didn’t have anywhere near as much patience as he liked to pretend he did.

There was a huge chance that the human would try to punch him in the face or clam up in fear so Judar opted to watch him carefully instead of letting himself get distracted by fish. The more Judar looked at him, the more disappointed he was. The clothes he was wearing would be huge on him, were a scratchy material, and looked foreign. He was certain that they’d stand out in Rakushou.

The human regained enough awareness to scream the next morning. It was kind of funny - punching or swimming away, Judar could understand. But screaming? Like anyone was going to save him in the open ocean. The ship had disappeared somewhere in the storm. Maybe it fell into the sea, or maybe it was safely reaching its destination. It didn’t matter anymore. He should be able to get much more information from interrogating a crew member than just following it.

“Shut up and stop your screaming,” Judar said. “You would have drowned way sooner if I didn’t pick you up.”

“S, s, s, siren!” He screamed. “Oh, please! Someone save me!”

“No one's gonna save you. If you cooperate, I won’t even kill you.” He let go of the human and raised his hands innocently. “See?”

The human tried to swim away once more. He was fatigued and had no tail. Really, he was more likely to drown himself on accident than accomplish anything. But Judar let him swim away until he was satisfied that there were no ships to save him.

“Come on,” Judar said. “This is stupid. If I wanted to eat you, I would have already done it. Just tell me what I want to know and I’ll leave you alone.”

“Away! Away, beast!”

Judar gritted his teeth. This guy was really getting on his nerves.

All it took was a flick of his staff to raise the man into midair. He couldn’t squirm or swim away anymore. “There, was all that whining worth it?” Judar asked. “Look where it got you.”

“Unhand me! Let me go!!”

“Sure. But only after you tell me what I need to know. Where was your ship headed?”

“Kou. The Kou Empire. We didn’t mean to enter your territory…”

“The hell? That’s what you think this is about? Stupid human.”

“S, sorry! I apologize!!”

“Next question. Where in Kou? And how close were you?”

“O, originally we were going to Balbadd. But there was too much fighting, they’re still high security from all the rebellions, and…”

“I don’t care about what’s going on in Balbadd. Are you going to Rakushou? Or not?”

The human shrieked, and Judar rolled his eyes. Did he have to be so dramatic over a few questions? It wasn’t like humans didn’t know that sirens could make it to land. They told horror stories about it all the time.

“Y, yes. Rakushou. We come from Sindria, we need the trade, we—”

“How much longer to Rakushou? It’s east from here, right?”

“North now. A month of sailing. Just a month longer, but that storm…”

“Okay. That was all I needed to know.” Judar smiled. He was much faster than a boat. It wouldn’t be too long until he could see Hakuryuu again and he was suddenly giddy.

“W-will you leave me now?” The human asked with an uncertain voice.

“Hm? Oh, yeah. You’re gonna die at sea anyway, so it’s not like it matters. I’ll be taking your magoi.” With that, he froze the veins of the human.

If he had electrocuted him the clothes would have been damaged. And freezing was bloodless - it would be a pain to have to fight off a hundred sharks for blood when he was so close. It didn’t take long to rob the human of his magoi and clothes.

All he could think of on the swim to Rakushou was Hakuryuu. How much time had passed? It wasn’t winter, that was for sure. Summer was much more likely. So it had been half a year at the least. How much could humans change in half a year? Or even a year and a half… no, it couldn’t have been. If only it were easier to grasp time from the depths of the sea.

What would Hakuryuu say when he saw him? Judar was looking forward to it. 

They had only known each other for a short time, but Hakuryuu had made a significant impact on his life. Hakuryuu had something that he was willing to live and die for: his revenge. At first Judar thought it was the kind of entertaining thing only a human could do. But he was starting to understand.

It was almost like a delusion. He was able to see things that he hadn’t seen before because of it, and all of those nonsensical human feelings began to make sense. The warm feeling in his stomach that only Hakuryuu caused. The resolve to do anything if it meant he could continue to live as he had been. It wasn’t the so-called ninth type of magic that made rukh shine in a pink not unlike the red of flames. It was more simple than that. A delusion of the human world that let him believe in something he had no reason to believe in and do things he’d never be forgiven for doing.

But that was fine. More than fine. Hakuryuu had let him into his false reality where only his revenge was just, and in return Judar had shown him a reality where killing to prolong the life of his fake body was just. They were realities that could exist together, make a world together.

He accepted Hakuryuu's reality. And loved it. Hakuryuu couldn’t live in the world he wanted alone, so Judar would join him. He would help make his dreams of revenge into a reality where they were stronger than those who wronged them.

With nothing better to think about on the long swim, Judar allowed himself to fantasize about what could happen. Thinking about Hakuryuu was all that ever seemed to improve his mood. It gave him something to do in the empty darkness of the deep sea and was just as good of company on the long swim northwards.

Would they start a war against Kouen’s loyal army after Hakuryuu’s mother was dead? He couldn’t wait. He wanted to see the face Hakuryuu would make when his dreams took shape in the form of his victory.

Judar had no idea exactly how long it would be for him to make it to Rakushou. He counted the days and nights on his fingers until he ran out then became impatient once more. He’d seen maps of Kou before and understood that he was somewhere by the gulf. But a map was actually pretty different from real life. He saw small islands, little more than groups of rocks trying to defend each other from the strength of waves, but no coast until another few days.

Most of the Kou Empire’s coasts were rocky. The population was centered in a few cities rather than spread evenly across its mass, so Judar felt confidant in swimming closely to land. 

By nightfall he found that familiar shore he’d washed up on for the first time. He didn’t have to have gone through the effort to find the same shore or anything, but he was more confidant in transferring himself to the city’s edge there.

Sitting in the shallow water there again almost felt like a dream. The hot, damp air from farther south didn't feel the same as Rakushou’s air. But Rakushou’s air felt the same as it had months before he’d left. Midsummer was Judar’s best guess at the season.

So he’d already been away longer than he was in the human world in the first place. Time really did pass differently above and below the sea.

Now he just had to find Hakuryuu… no, somewhere to sleep. That was the first thing he had to do. Judar turned back to face the sea. Waves of an almost-blue gray, each the same as the last. His borg was the only reason it was as easy as it was for him to sleep in the shallow waters.

Or he could break into the palace. That might be fun. Of course, it wouldn't be hard to break into Hakuryuu’s room. But he wouldn’t be a very welcome guest if he did that.

Spending the night in a hotel somewhere in town would have been possible too if he had any money. Without any his best bet was sleeping in the sea.

Could he even sleep now? Rakushou was a big place. He wanted to see if it had changed. He didn’t want to go back into the ocean even if it was just for sleeping, not now that he was so close.

Judar cast the spell for legs too hastily the first time and messed up, leaving them attached at the knees. The second time he couldn’t generate enough skin to cover the small blue scales on his ankles.

He was starting to see why everyone had to take a stab at his life magic skills back at his colony. They left a little too much room for improvement.

Not that he was bad at it!

The third cast was perfect. Judar’s legs were shaky but he didn’t fall down as much as the first time he’d tried walking on them. Compared to his tail, they felt strangely filled with blood and as he paced on the shore to get used to them, he had to fight the urge to jump up with them to stretch. Maybe it was just the feeling of his own excitement.

The human’s clothes were ill fitting. No, that was an understatement. They barely hid his gills. If the wind blew at just the right angle, he’d easily expose himself as a nonhuman. The danger was almost refreshing after being at sea for so long. Even so, Judar was careful to hold the shirt’s collar closed as he stretched. He tried to burn the need to hold it still into his mind while he was still alone. He could at least wait until he found Hakuryuu to make a stupid mistake.

After stretching he cast a transfer circle. Gravity magic was tricky, but its difficulty was more mathematical than organic. Getting just the right mixture of rukh for each formula inside it and all. It was much more orderly than the extreme individual variability of organic magic.

The cost of transfer magic was a function of distance and weight. He’d learned that taking Hakuryuu to the coast with it. Since there was less to eat on land than in the sea it wasn’t worth it to walk the same distance he’d walked after surfacing the first time. So it wasn’t that he was just feeling lazy on the final stretch. He was determined to do a better job keeping magoi this time. If he didn’t, coming back would have been useless.

Rakushou was, for the most part, just as Judar remembered it. He was wearing odd and terribly fitting clothes but everyone was too absorbed in enjoying their evening to notice past some stares and whispers. He walked along the markets, empty aside from a few guards, and through streets lined with open-air restaurants.

Right now he could only watch from the outside. He wanted a fresh change of clothes, and some pocket change would be good. But he didn't have either of those things. It reminded him of the time he was told to roam the streets as if he was a slave on duty.

Maybe it was natural that Rakushou was the same as he remembered it. It’d probably been the same for a long time, after all. Since long before he was born. It even might last in some form past his own death.

He hoped not. Petty as it might be, it was offensive to think that a creation of humans could outlast him. Maybe when he felt like dying he’d take Rakushou with him, just to be mean.

It would be more suspicious to try to enter the palace late at night. He’d done it before, but at least wanted some new clothes before trying it again. Besides, he knew all the evening shift guards. He’d chatted with them more than once killing time after a day in town, waiting for Hakuryuu to finish his training for the day. He could probably reason with them well enough.

He’d wait around for tomorrow evening. That was the best move.

It was unlikely that Hakuryuu would have spoken to anyone to say he was no longer welcome in the palace. He was the kind of person who liked to keep his options open even if he found them repulsive. It was something Judar liked about him, and it wasn’t just because it was working to his advantage.

In the meantime, he’d go clothes shopping. With no money it was easier said than done. The contrast of his gold jewelry with his oversized foreign - what was it, Sindrian? - clothes was an embarrassment. He didn’t want to go anywhere near the palace looking like this. But it was excessive to kill someone for a change of clothes.

The last human didn’t count. He was going to die anyway.

As he weighed his options, the smell of his least favorite dishes wafting into the street from restaurants about to close up for the day was enough to shoo Judar out of the main streets. Away from the lights of nightlife, any human would have trouble seeing. So most took lamps or walked along walls. Despite having lived most of his life in darkness, Judar’s eyes weren’t much better adjusted. After all, most sirens lived higher in the sea than his colony. So there was no reason for his eyes to be especially good at seeing in the dark. They’d adjust, sure, but not much faster than humans if Hakuryuu was anything to go by. He didn’t have an advantage in alleyways aside from having the privacy to use light magic.

Searching his brain for a way to make the cash for new clothes, Judar finally remembered the locket hanging from his neck. Originally he’d kept it tied around his wrist, but after almost dropping a few times from swimming too fast, he’d given up on keeping it in sight. It took hours to undo the rusted latch on the chain, but he’d eventually gotten it securely hanging from his neck.

Judar fumbled with the latch in the darkness. It was just as stubborn on land as it was in the ocean. After a few tries and a little pinch on his finger, he managed to undo the chain. He turned the locket around in his hand, then hung it by its chain in front of his eyes.

It wasn’t light enough to make out much more than he could in the sea. He commanded the rukh to make a light source for him. It didn’t look much different from in the water - the small, unpolished red gem at the locket’s center looked duller, but silver didn’t sparkle in the sea like it did on land.

He shook it once more before opening it, just to make sure that the contents hadn’t somehow escaped. They were still there. So he wrestled the locket’s clasp open the same as he’d done to the chain: with more effort than a human probably would have needed. Sirens didn’t need strong hands.

Light magic reflected off of the inside of the locket, making Judar squint. The blue glare was one he was familiar with. It was the same blue of the sun reflecting off the ocean and his scales.

He tilted it to the side to get the glare out of his eyes.

A scale and some hair. Typical siren mementos. He picked up the hair, tied tightly with a small string. It must have been pretty secure for the water to not break the string down. Squinting, he tried to make out the exact color of the hair. It was darker than Scheherazade or Yunan or anyone else’s hair, but compared to his own…

He held it to his hair for comparison. It was the same color. It was only natural, since it must have belonged to someone in his birth colony. But for some reason, seeing it tightened his gut in a weird way. Just the fact that there were sirens with scales and hair like his was a strange thought.

Hair and scales didn't keep the rukh of their owner once they were removed from the body. That would be weird. Humans would have their rukh spread all over the unswept ground then. So he had no way of knowing who the hair belonged to - if it was someone he’d never seen, living on the outskirts of the colony, or even someone from his own family.

The heavy feeling in his gut rose, and Judar almost felt like he was going to be sick.

He set the hair on the stone-paved road beside his crossed legs and picked the scale up between his fingers. It was just the same as his own, a scale that would have reflected repulsively little in the sea. But on land it was worth thousands of huang. More money than all his paychecks combined.

Scales, like hair, were hereditary. Yunan and Scheherazade, born into the same colony but to different families, had differently colored scales. Scheherazade and Titus had scales only slightly different in hue. Scheherazade’s were a cold purple where Titus’s were warm. The color of their lineage, displayed proudly on their bodies. Aladdin’s mother had firey pink scales whereas Aladdin’s were just firey. And here was a scale the same as Judar’s own.

He hiked up his robe and held the scale to his leg. Even in the dim light he could see the thin white borders of his scales. Maybe they’d be unnoticable if he weren’t looking for them, but it was easy to hold the scale up to compare its size to the size of his own.

It was one of the biggest scales on a siren’s body, that was clear. One of the first scales before they sunk into skin. The scale that was traditionally given to a lover when it was in their best interest to become selfless and commit.

…Not sick. No, he wouldn’t be sick. The feeling in his gut pushed past his throat into his eyes, and ran out in the form of tears. No different from crying to expel saltwater from his body, and yet different enough to make him heave.

The scale, though so much like his own, had a pink sheen when he turned it that his own scales lacked. It wasn’t his, but it was easy to see what it was. A scale removed as a gift to a loved one alongside the hair of someone they held dear.

Once he began to cry, it was difficult to stop. He pretended to cry plenty of times as a child to try to get off the hook for punishment, and at the time it’d worked enough to keep him doing it. Other than that, there’d never been much else to cry over. Nothing was important to him, so nothing made him sad. Nothing made him cry. He’d always secretly looked down on the others when they cried, all worked up over meaningless things. And now look at him, doing the same.

Having his family taken from him, never allowed to feel the warmth of being loved, hurt. It just wasn’t the kind of hurt he could understood. Just like he hadn’t missed the warmth of the sun when he’d never seen it before, he’d been unable to comprehend that feeling in a deeper way than jealousy over the others who had it.

So… crying now was a little embarrassing. No one could see him, but it was still embarrassing. And humiliating. His rukh buzzed around, unsure of what it was feeling and how it should react, when it pressed close enough to whisper to him.

_Just like a child._

Judar tensed. He balled the scale up in his fist, willing it out of sight.

_Worried it’ll be violated? Your hand is as vile as mine._

…Of course. Exactly right again. He forced his rukh to quiet.

It was magic. Life and sound magic working together, most likely. He had no idea the reason, but it only seemed to work as long as his rukh was irritated.

So he sat and tried to force himself to breathe evenly.

It was right. He had no right to feel sad, as he was just as guilty as the culprit. Sirens had lots of magoi. He thought about murdering his own colony just for more so he could return to the land to return to the flawed state of mind he coveted.

Killing made people hurt. It made them suffer.

He hated the person who killed his family. He hated them for forcing him into a place where he lived, caged, for twenty years, never feeling the light of day and never knowing a real family to warm him in its absence. If possible, he would like get revenge.

The culprit probably had motives no different from his own. Sirens had magoi, and magoi was power. It was reasonable. But since he was the one affected, he would selfishly return the favor and kill them for the parents he’d lost. Maybe one day Judar would be on the receiving end of someone’s desire for revenge, too. That was fine.

That was how it should be.

The stranger in his rukh seemed to smile; it agreed and yet did not feel the same pain he did. It wanted to laugh. He could hear it.

Hear it but not feel it.

It was a voice from the black rukh but it wasn’t his own. It never was. It was probably there as long as it’d been black just to taunt him.

The next day’s midday market wouldn’t pay anything for the hair, but he had good luck with the locket. He already had his choker anyway, and the different styles kinda clashed. It was enough to buy some nicer clothes - not fitted, but not twenty sizes too big either.

He changed, and by the time he got back to the city proper he felt confident in trying to enter the palace.

The guard’s eyes lit up instantly with recognition. “Hey, you’re Judar, right? It’s been awhile!” He squinted into the distance behind him. “You’ve come before Prince Hakuryuu?”

“Wh—” Judar caught himself before he said anything stupid. This guard wasn’t smart enough for a fake out, and even if he were it would be pointless suspicion unless Hakuryuu said something to him, which was astronomically unlikely. “Ah, yeah.”

“It’s terrible about the emperor,” the guard said. “But listen - after the funerary rites, want to catch up? Tell me all about Sindria.”

Sindria? Why there? From listening in on those sailors, he had a pretty good idea of what it was like. Either way, he wasn’t informed enough to continue the conversation. Didn’t much feel like dealing with acting all buddy-buddy with the guard, either. “I've gotta catch up on my sleep first,” Judar said. “And I’ve got some errands to run.”

“Right, of course. Sir.”

With that, Judar was let in with minimal hassle.

It sounded like Hakuryuu left the country soon after Judar left land. If he hadn’t said anything about Judar then left the country, then that was really lucky. To think that he was coming back to the best case scenario for once. It was a welcome change for his luck.

He couldn’t wait for Hakuryuu to come back. And if the emperor really was dead, that was all the better. Hakuryuu would finally have his chance. This was the moment he needed power the most. He was running out of time to be picky with where his power came from.

If Kouen succeeded the throne, his soldiers would support him to the bitter end. The time before the coronation of the next emperor was vital.

Judar grinned. It was the perfect situation to force Hakuryuu into acting - force him into using Judar, letting him stand at his side.

He walked the halls aimlessly, squinting at the dizzying color of pillars and painted wood just like he used to when he first surfaced. They were novel back then and he hadn’t even known the difference between cranes and dragons. Back then they were all human inventions of colors. Soldiers scurried from room to room, weaving past without minding Judar’s slow pace. The soldiers were focused but not stressed in the least. In fact, many were in a good mood at the emperor’s death, though none voiced it. They were excited for their leader to finally take the throne. The military’s dedication to Kouen was impressive, to say the least. 

Just as Judar was starting to wonder if he’d have to rent a room even with palace access, he heard someone call his name.

He turned and was greeted with Kougyoku, looking strange without Ka Koubun trailing behind her and stranger with her nearly blank expression.

“What’s up?”

“I didn’t think you’d be here,” she said. Though her voice had been confidant when she first called out, now she looked uncertain.

“Why not?”

“Before I left, you disappeared. I couldn’t find you anywhere and when I asked Hakuryuu he said not to bother looking for you.”

Judar laughed. “What did you expect him to say?”

“I don’t know… but that’s not important now, I suppose.”

“Yeah, not really.”

Neither of them said anything for awhile. Finally, Judar remembered.

“Oh yeah! You got married, right? How’s that?”

Kougyoku’s expression faltered. “It is all well. Is Hakuryuu back as well?”

“Nah. How long until the funeral, anyway?”

“My brother Kouha has had to travel all the way from Musta’sim. I’ve heard that he won’t be back for another week. So the funeral is scheduled following his return.”

“Hmm. If only he’d croaked a few months sooner, right? Then you’d probably have gotten out of the whole arranged marriage thing.”

Kougyoku bit her lip. Before, she’d been so upset to hear Judar say that. But now that she had her taste of a lonely marriage and lost the right to pursue true love, she lost the strength to argue with Judar as well.

It was strange. From what Judar gathered, he’d been at sea for eight or nine months - an impossibly short span of time. And yet now Kougyoku was married and the emperor was dead. As usual, the human world exceeded his expectations.

Kougyoku didn’t say anything about when Hakuryuu would be back. If Kouha was the farthest away and it’d only be a week for him, then it would surely only be a few days until Hakuryuu’s return.

Several months hadn’t killed him. A few more days wouldn’t, either. Judar was getting good at waiting.

It only took half an hour to rent a room. The bed wasn’t half as comfortable as what they had in the palace, though, and the bath was difficult to warm to a pleasant temperature with magic. It sure as hell wasn’t a fancy enough room for someone to warm it for him. Life in the palace was cushier than he’d realized.

The next day Judar noticed two unfamiliar princesses roaming the palace halls. The day after, he saw another - or maybe it was one he’d already seen with another hairstyle. Either way, the palace was crawling with them. They stood out among drably dressed soldiers and reminisced by examining every nook and cranny of the palace with each other. They looked bored out of their minds waiting for something to happen.

By day three of waiting, Judar was pretty sure he’d counted seven princesses, including Kougyoku. That left one more - Hakuryuu’s sister. If he was remembering correctly, she was the oldest of the lot. Though he’d never met her, he felt like he already knew her from Hakuryuu’s horrified face as he read her letters detailing her dangerous adventures.

She was the last of the unmarried princesses now, and the oldest. Hakuryuu was worried because she was ‘getting too old to find a husband.’ If Kougyoku was anything to go by, Hakuryuu’s sister probably cared more about fighting as a general than marriage. She sounded pretty level headed to Judar, but Hakuryuu always seemed to be losing his mind with stress about her life choices.

Judar was looking forward to seeing them talk in the flesh. It would be fun to see Hakuryuu all worked up about it, his protests futile. Judar hadn’t really thought of it before but Hakuryuu was probably as troublesome of a little brother as they got.

Four days after Judar returned to the palace, Hakuryuu finally arrived in Rakushou… or so the guards said. Apparently it was customary for humans to send messengers forward before arriving at their destination to clear up any questions of accommodation, even in the case of arriving back at one’s home.

Judar couldn’t just stand at the palace entrance all day waiting. That would be boring. And, of course, it would be the easiest place to cause a scene. As fun as it would be it wasn’t a good way to get back on Hakuryuu’s good side.

He'd just wait by Hakuryuu’s door after dinner or something. Still boring, sure, but it had a higher chance of success. A one-on-one conversation would be the most beneficial for him.

After all, Hakuryuu could have him killed if he wanted to. Just exhaust his magoi and ambush him and it was done. He knew that Hakuryuu had no desire to sell his scales, but after spending a day with no money it almost seemed it’d be a waste to throw his corpse back in the ocean. Money was much more useful than a rotting fish.

Judar had one of the busy palace chefs cook him something. Food from professionals trained to please everyone tended to be less flavorful than Hakuryuu’s food, which suited him fine. He wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to the overly strong smelling food that humans ate. Oh, but peaches were good even when they smelled strongly of ripeness. They were the exception. It was all those spices he couldn’t handle. But it was a sacrifice he was willing to make.

With the sun setting the palace’s halls normally tended towards emptiness. In preparation for the funeral, servants worked until there was no longer enough light to effectively work in. Fortunately, the halls leading up to Hakuryuu’s room had nothing to do with preparations. It was rare for anyone but royalty, retainers, and servants to pass.

Judar could feel Hakuryuu’s rukh down the hall before he heard his steps. He didn’t turn his head to face Hakuryuu until after the steps had stopped, already certain of how he would react.

Hakuryuu wasn’t all too surprised to see him, but his rukh was restless. Its chirps were almost intelligible, unable to decide if they hated Judar for his lies and inconsistencies or if they hated that they were hurt by it all. What made it onto his face was nothing more than a scowl.

“I heard you went to Sindria,” Judar said. “What’s it like?”

“…”

“It’s been really boring lately. But it looks like things are finally starting to pick up, doesn’t it?”

“Judar… I told you not to come back.”

“But you’re not gonna chase me off.”

Hakuryuu’s expression darkened. He opened his mouth to protest, but nothing came out and his failure to find something to say just upset him more.

Judar moved off the wall and walked a few steps away. Hakuryuu was too worked up to have a real conversation as things were, and pissing him off wouldn’t make it any easier to get back on his good side. “See you tomorrow,” Judar said. “There’s still a while ‘til the funeral. They’ll be announcing the next emperor then, right?”

Hakuryuu didn’t respond and made no move to face him.

Judar left to let Hakuryuu think. Looked like he’d have to spend another night in an uncomfortable hotel room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you ever think about how what judars thinking and what actually ends up coming out of his mouth are completely different things sometimes? especially in belial's dungeon. even in this fic, if it were only what he says instead of what he thinks and says, i think he might come off as being a different kind of person entirely


	12. Chapter 12

Judar met Hakuei by chance. She was doing the same thing as the other princesses: walking around the gardens and chatting. However, she didn’t appear to be popular with the other princesses - while the others tended to tour the palace in groups, talking only among themselves, she was with someone who couldn’t have been royalty. Her retainer, maybe?

Judar hopped down from his favorite tree’s napping spot as she passed by his courtyard. Having caught her attention, he waved. “Hey, you’re Hakuei, right?”

Hakuei and the boy exchanged glances. “That’s correct. And you are?” She asked.

“Judar.”

Neither of them recognized the name. Well, that was fine too. He was wearing plain clothes and his status, if it still counted, wasn’t easily visible. But that might work out better for him in the end.

“I heard about you,” Judar said. “You’ve been in the plains until now, right? What’s it like?”

Hakuei brightened up at the opportunity to talk about the plains, though she didn’t drop her guard completely.

Apparently the subjugation of the plans was much more peaceful than it could've been. In fact, she had the palace prepare rooms for all hundred of a certain tribe she’d grown close to, refusing to take no for an answer. She was stubborn for a princess, much more so than Kougyoku who listened carefully to authority. It wasn’t hard to see the similarities between Hakuei and her brother at all. Her rukh even moved in the same open way, easily telling Judar she was guarded even when she wanted to believe he was talking to her with good intentions.

That was about where the similarities between her and Hakuryuu ended. There were many differences between them, too. Stark differences. Hakuei believed in Kouen’s values just as wholeheartedly as his soldiers did, though she didn’t speak of him on a personal level. Either they actually weren’t all that close or she didn’t trust Judar with that information.

She was also very close with her retainer. When he made a joke she laughed at it and agreed, and when she couldn’t find a word he tried to find it for her. He didn’t have to ask to know that they trusted each other implicitly.

She wasn’t bad. Judar didn’t mind spending time talking with her. He especially liked the way her expression froze in a blank but polite smile when he disagreed while she thought of a good-natured counterargument. It reminded him of Hakuryuu. He didn’t keep his cool as well as Hakuei did, though.

It took about an hour for Hakuryuu to find them. At seeing Judar with his sister, he immediately scowled. Judar just smiled.

In a situation like this, it was impossible for Hakuryuu to ignore him. And he wasn’t ready to wholly write off Judar’s abilities yet. Judar was looking forward to seeing Hakuryuu’s ability to improvise.

“Hakuryuu,” Hakuei greeted him. “I was just about to make lunch. Did you want some?”

“Ah…” Hakuryuu’s eyes darted between Judar and his sister. “You shouldn’t… um, you shouldn’t worry about cooking, sister. I can do it.”

“I haven’t eaten yet either,” Judar said. “Let’s have fish.”

“I’d like to have horse milk with it, if you don’t mind.” Hakuei said. “We can get some from the stables. I’m familiar with the horses from Kouga.”

“I’m making cabbage soup,” Hakuryuu said. “But I think horse milk will go well with it.” 

Judar groaned. “Hakuryuu, are you trying to kill me?”

“Oh, do you know each other?” Hakuei asked. Though it was an innocent question, the garden’s tension spiked. Seishun noticed, but Hakuei didn’t. She just stood, smiling, waiting for a formal introduction to Judar by Hakuryuu.

“R, right… This is Judar. He’s… staying at the palace. For a time.”

Judar smiled brightly.

“Please ask of him whatever you’d like, just as you would from any servant. You too, Seishun.” Hakuryuu returned his smile.

“Hey!! That’s not fair!”

Despite Hakuryuu’s vagueness, with the way he worded it Hakuei would have to find out eventually. And it wasn’t like Hakuryuu would drive him out of the palace grounds or anything.

So he could say with certainty that Hakuryuu was still considering him an option. Though they hadn’t spoken clearly about it yet, he’d have to before the funeral.

It wasn’t worth eating cabbage soup and drinking horse milk just to talk to Hakuryuu, so Judar made up an excuse and left.

He passed the next few days with Kougyoku, for the most part. It wasn’t that he was trying to cheer her up, but with Hakuryuu still shunning him, she was the best company he could find.

At first she was slow to talk. She didn’t miss the food or the scenery of the Kou Empire since Balbadd was something of an extension of the empire now, but she did claim to miss Judar. Naturally, he made fun of her relentlessly.

Compared to Kougyoku, Ka Koubun was much faster to talk about what it was like. “Balbadd is always hot and humid,” he said. “So it’s often better to go out in the evening than during the day.”

“Yes,” Kougyoku agreed. “And there's a splendid night-blooming jasmine around the palace.”

“I heard there’s civil trouble there. How’s that?”

“It’s no longer a problem,” Koubun said. “When we arrived there was a revolution against the royalty. But with our military’s help, the area has stabilized.”

“Huh. Was there still even a king to marry?”

“Of course. The revolution succeeded, and a new king was enthroned. Even if he was common born, he’s become Balbadd’s king. Under Lord Kouen, of course. Princess Kougyoku has come a long way by marrying him.” Koubun’s greed was easily visible through his statement, but Kougyoku payed it no mind.

“He may not be fighting our military now, but…” Kougyoku mumbled, looking distraught. “I don’t know how long the peace will last.”

“If he causes problems he’ll get the axe,” Judar said. “Think the new emperor would let you pick a new husband after he dies or pick one for you?”

Kougyoku didn’t respond. Koubun shot him a mean look before trying to comfort her. “Princess, would you like me to run you a bath? The change in climate can’t be good for you.”

Though Kougyoku had also left from Balbadd, her older brothers didn’t arrive until several days later. It seemed that although she had no duties to attend to, they had many and were held up by ensuring the peace before they left. Though Judar wasn’t there to see it, apparently Hakuryuu had it in him to refuse to bow to Kouen when he arrived.

What a rude guy. Actually, Judar never remembered that he was supposed to bow for anyone either. He wondered if there were rumors about his impoliteness back then too. Though when it came to Hakuryuu, the rumors didn’t top at how rude he was - they extended to how he must think he has rights to the throne, and how he must be plotting to kill Kouen, and so on.

Well, they weren’t wrong. But Hakuryuu wasn't stupid enough to act with a zero percent chance of success, either. His judgement was sound.

Kouha arrived last. Though it was late and he was probably tired from his long travels, Judar went to visit him anyway.

Like Kougyoku, he remembered that several months ago Judar had left before Hakuryuu without any explanation. Unlike Kougyoku, he found it suspicious that he was back at all.

“Hakuryuu’s not the type to forgive and forget, you know? What’d you do to get back?”

“Who said he sent me away at all? I just had something to do.”

“Yeah, but… I asked Kougyoku and she said that Hakuryuu said not to bother asking, or something.”

“Why didn’t you just ask him yourself? You even shier than Kougyoku or something?”

“No way, I just… well.” Kouha wrinkled his nose. “You know.”

“Didn’t want to talk to Hakuryuu.”

“Unlike you, I like people to know where my loyalties lie. That’s all.”

With the last of the royal family present, things felt very lively in the palace. There was never an empty hall between someone bringing this or that in that a princess wanted and someone else shouting orders about proper procedure for the funeral. Kouen hadn’t brought as many soldiers back as last time he visited. Judar assumed the rest were still stationed in Balbadd to remind the puppet king not to try anything.

Past Balbadd, Kouha had already started threatening Musta’sim’s royal family. There was a lone princess of marriageable age at Musta’sim, but the Kou Empire wasn’t quite as keen to marry off its princes as its princesses. So they’d probably invade.

After that, it was pretty much just the Kingdom of Aktia on the eastern continent. If they took that half the world would be within Kou’s borders. If Hakuryuu could take over from there, he’d be getting a pretty sweet deal.

But Kouen’s campaign would stop before Aktia. As part of the Seven Seas Alliance it was much riskier to negotiate capture. If it was done wrong the rest of the world would retaliate according to the mutual protection pact of the Seven Seas Alliance. Well, except for Reim. At the head of the Alliance was Sindria, a tropical island nation and the biggest headache of Kou’s politics, at least until Hakuryuu made his move.

They must not be on too terrible of terms with Sindria if Hakuryuu was allowed to visit, though. Unless the whole point of sending him there was hoping he’d die.

Ha.

After Judar got tired of being run into by servants in the halls, he went to his favorite courtyard instead. Though the sun had long since set, he wasn’t in the mood to leave the palace yet. And, as silly as it was, he kept hoping that if he stood around long enough Hakuryuu would finally stop giving him the cold shoulder and tell him whatever he planned to do for the funeral.

He was stubborn enough to keep that hope for days.

Finally, the night before the funeral, Hakuryuu found him in the courtyard. He didn’t speak for awhile. Instead, the crickets and his rukh did all the talking. He looked like he knew what he wanted to say but had forgotten how now that he was face to face with Judar.

It wasn’t supposed to be a comfortable silence but it reminded him of all the nights they spent together. Hakuryuu’s clothes held the same nice scent as his room, and even though they weren’t close, the light breeze carried it well.

Judar hopped off the willow branches less than elegantly. “What’s your plan?”

“…That doesn't matter. There’s a type of magic I need you to learn.”

“What is it?”

“Clairvoyance magic. I found various books describing it in a way that works with the rukh system you explained. So it should be possible for you.”

“Clairvoyance magic, huh? I’ve heard of it. What do you need it for?”

“Every account I’ve read says that it can only show the truth. I can think of many uses for it.”

“I’ll do it,” Judar said. “But you can’t expect me to figure it out before the funeral.”

“I don’t need it by then. By the end of the week is fine.”

“Hard ass. That’s barely any more time.”

“I’m sure you can figure it out, since you’re a self-proclaimed great magician.”

Judar huffed. “Of course I can. You’ll throw me in the ocean if I don’t learn it.”

“In a lake, if possible. Or maybe you’d prefer a swamp?”

“Gross.”

“…I will allow you to attend the funeral as my retainer. But know that I have the means to get rid of you if you fail me.”

“Is that what you were off doing in Sindria?”

“Not exactly. But it doesn’t hurt to pick up a few new skills.”

“It’s not like it’d be hard for me to get rid of you, either.”

“You won’t.”

“Yeah, I won’t,” Judar smiled. “I already said it before. I won’t betray you.”

Hakuryuu frowned, obviously not believing him. He turned and left for his room, not bothering to justify him with a response, and especially not a goodnight.

Judar rolled his eyes once he was out of sight. Telling him to learn a new and difficult kind of magic and then leaving without another word, huh?

Despite his complaints, Judar got to work immediately. It’d been forever since he was in the library and he wasn’t looking forward to using it, but it was better to get it over with sooner than later.

The palace library was large but not especially well lit. At night it was even worse - Judar had to squint to see the deep carvings on pillars, nevermind the small and often faded text in scrolls on magic. Light magic would be too conspicuous so Judar found a spare oil lamp in a kitchen to use to read.

To his surprise, someone was already in the library. In the desk between shelves of Torran language scrolls sat someone who Judar vaguely recognized but couldn’t place.

Thanks to the lamp, Judar drew his attention away from his scroll immediately. 

“You’re Hakuryuu’s retainer, correct?”

“…Yeah.”

He stared, and Judar stared back. The staring was familiar but a name wasn’t coming to mind.

“What’re you doing here so late? Did Hakuryuu send you?”

“No,” Judar lied.

“The only scrolls this way are Torran. Can you read it?”

“…Can _you_?”

He smirked. “Have you forgotten who I am?”

Actually, yes, was what Judar wanted to say. But at that moment it clicked.

Kouen, the first prince who was on the fast track to becoming the next emperor. Judar had met him only once before, and if things went well, Judar would probably end up killing him sooner or later on Hakuryuu’s orders.

“Sit down,” Kouen commanded.

Hakuryuu would give him an earful later but Judar sat anyway. He glanced at Kouen’s scroll. His reading skills were rusty and he wouldn’t be able to figure out what it was about without sounding it out slowly.

“Read.”

“Who says I can read it?” Judar asked. “It’s all just symbols to me.” Of course he realized what Kouen was looking for - some change in expression at reading the text to betray his words. For once being bad at reading worked to his advantage, as he was sure his expression stayed neutral. He probably needed to review before reading magic scrolls if his skills deteriorated that much. It was only barely starting to come back when Kouen was satisfied with his cluelessness and began to speak again.

“Your name isn’t from around here. Nor is it from any of the surrounding provinces. However, you appear by all means to be from Kou… Isn’t that strange?”

“I already explained this to Koumei. Doesn’t he report to you?”

“Despite how well you speak, your accent comes through on certain words. ‘Symbols,’ for example. Not an accent that I hear from people who’ve spent their whole lives within the borders. I thought I was imagining it last time, but it seems a bit stronger today. Have you spent time away?”

Judar sat back in his chair, unsure of how to answer. Kouen’s questions caught him off guard. If Hakuryuu was already defying Kouen, it was probably best if he followed suit. Yeah.

“I answer Hakuryuu’s questions, not yours. Why don’t you try asking him?”

“…I thought it might be something like that. Very well. Which scrolls did you come for? I noticed that I haven’t been the only person in this section lately.”

“None of your business.”

With that, Judar left. He extinguished the lamp and waited for Kouen to leave before going back.

Luckily, it didn’t take long. Judar was able to take several dustless scrolls without running into anyone. It was impossible to make it all the way back to his hotel with the scrolls without coming across a guard who would inevitably assume he was stealing them. So he cooped himself up in one of the side rooms to read. It was somehow even easier to fall asleep in than the library proper.

Hakuryuu must have spent lots of time reading through the palace’s Torran scrolls looking at different types of magic to find real ones, because many spells Judar read sounded absolutely ridiculous.

Magic to please God. Magic to bring fortune to your parents. Magic to elongate the life of someone precious. All supposedly possible with nothing but tea leaves and dainty scents. 

Those were the scrolls that had to be written by humans.

Magic to cause a flood to befall your enemies. Magic to set a city on fire. Magic to bring sickness to those who have wronged you. Each spell was followed by type diagrams and chicken scratches indicating what point of the staff to hold and how strong the flick of the wrist ought to be to cast, though they must have been nothing more than ink spills to human eyes.

That was magic in its true form.

One day wasn’t enough to master clairvoyance magic, but it was enough to find the scrolls that described it. It was a type of magic that required rukh from its subject for its use. The most common medium was blood. With just a drop of blood, it was capable of projecting any such event that the rukh of the blood had witnessed, even one that its owner couldn’t recall consciously, if the magician was skillful enough. It could also project those true events to others if used in conjugation with water or light magic.

Judar could think of lots of uses for it, too. He now knew that Hakuryuu hated liars, and clairvoyance magic was the strongest defense there was against them. It could be used on allies and enemies alike to verify their personal beliefs.

It looked hard to get right even at a short range. Longer ranged casts could potentially take huge amounts of magoi, the same way long distance transfer magic did. He hoped that Hakuryuu only needed it for short range.

Since Hakuryuu knew he was a siren now it wouldn't be as big of a deal as last time if he ran out. He’d already blown it, so fucking up again didn’t matter much. Instead of someone who could sleep together with Hakuryuu, right now he was just taking orders without arguing. On the other hand, if he did well he might be able to gain his former place again. So he had to work hard to learn it quickly.

Judar was letting himself be bossed around like a dog and he knew it. To think that he used to pride himself on pretending to be more independent-minded than Aladdin and the others. In reality, he was fine living like this just to see Hakuryuu accomplish his goals. Being on his bad side was better than not being there at all.

Eventually, Judar got distracted from studying magic and fell asleep at the library table.

On the day of the funeral Judar woke up sore, stiff, and feeling only vaguely more confidant in his understanding of clairvoyance magic. It took about an hour of groggy wandering to find Hakuryuu, who had already changed into funerary clothes for the day. Judar didn’t really see much of a difference between the so-called ‘proper’ mourning attire from what Hakuryuu normally wore, but humans were strange like that.

“My mother will most likely be in the inner palace once we arrive,” Hakuryuu mumbled so only Judar could hear as they walked. “If what I’ve read is reliable, you should be able to discern information about her just by seeing her. Is that correct?”

“Yeah. More or less.”

“Tell me what you find immediately once we’re out of her hearing range.”

Judar nodded. It was annoying having to follow orders without being able to give much of his own input, but he needed to gain Hakuryuu’s trust again. So for now he’d obey diligently.

The inner palace was smaller than Judar thought it’d be. Significantly smaller and darker than the outer courtyards, it was stuffy with incense and hot from both the summer heat and body heat of everyone standing to ‘mourn.’ Judar joined the edges with Seishun - only the royal children were to say goodbyes personally.

Just as he was processing the unfamiliar scents and almost dizzyingly detailed decor, he felt it. He whipped his head around to the strange feeling, and saw it.

The woman painted on the wall of the library, holding her dead husband’s hand with an all too perfect smile. Her rukh flitted about, chirping as if to mock at how weak of a human her husband had been. Judar’s breath caught in his throat at the sight.

It was black. The same color of rukh as Judar’s and the stagnant rukh of a colony killed for reasons he didn’t understand.

Her eyes, at first focused on greeting her children, slowly moved to meet Judar’s. Her false smile faltered as she tried not to laugh. Her rukh crowded towards her to take an order, then flashed the green of sound magic that reached Judar’s ears.

“Hakuryuu… takes after his father more than I thought he would,” she said, mouth never moving, even as her voice trailed off in a quiet giggle. Then her false smile was back and she continued greeting her children.

…What?

More than her words, wasn’t her voice a little too familiar? 

After that, she latched onto Kouen. Judar averted his eyes to think.

The emperor’s body was pretty grotesque. Natural causes were unlikely. Judar wasn’t all that great at life magic, but it looked like the empire’s witch was. She’d probably been waiting for something to happen before disposing of him. Though it was always possible that she just got bored, too.

Whatever her motive, it was clear that she wasn’t human. He’d never seen black rukh anywhere but in one place, so she was probably from there too. Why the rukh was abnormal there, he didn’t understand. But knowing another living being with dark rukh was a start.

“…the testament of His Majesty will now be read…”

Judar snapped out of his thoughts and looked to the open casket once more. That was right, what was Hakuryuu going to do? After this, he’d have to overcome Kouen’s unified army to get anywhere…

“…the third emperor of the Kou Empire is Ren Gyokuen.”

Shocked gasps rang through the palace. Gyokuen justified herself with the position by naming it as a temporary measure - however, with her smile and her crocodile tears, it was obviously her own will. Never mind the will of the previous emperor and the people.

“M, mother, please reconsider,” Hakuei sputtered. “Even if this is His Majesty’s will, it—”

Hakuryuu pushed forward. “Your Majesty.”

Judar smiled.

“Please take the throne. No one but you can do it!”

Those wishing to avoid conflict followed Hakuryuu with cheers. They failed to realize that Hakuryuu, more than Kouen or his most loyal generals, wished for conflict.

Kouen’s followers reacted poorly to Hakuryuu supporting Gyokuen, but Kouen himself didn’t seem surprised. He’d already steeled himself to the possibility of fighting a civil war.

Judar didn’t follow Hakuryuu out. Instead, he left with Seishun. It was clear that the funeral rattled Hakuei’s retainer. He didn’t have much to say. Actually, he hadn’t had much of anything to say since he learned Judar was Hakuryuu’s retainer. It unnerved his rukh, and Hakuryuu’s apparent support of Gyokuen only made it worse. Eventually Judar gave up trying to talk to him and left on his own.

Last he saw, Hakuryuu was with Hakuei. So he’d have to wait until Hakuryuu was alone to talk to him. They didn’t spend much time apart, though. He had time. Judar left the palace for a much deserved nap.

He didn’t wake up until the next day. Vaguely his half-asleep mind realized that he should’ve told Hakuryuu where he was staying or, better yet, made Hakuryuu give him a key to his room before agreeing to work on clairvoyance magic for him. Oh well.

Stretching didn’t help the soreness in his body, and neither did the long walk to the palace. Even worse, he was questioned by the guards who were still on edge from the previous day. By the time he made it in Judar was ready to go right back to sleep.

A few of the princesses with stricter husbands were already preparing to leave, while those with more freedom like Kougyoku chose to spend a few more days in Rakushou before returning. The outer courtyard was filled with horses and guards preparing to give the princesses as comfortable of a journey as possible.

In addition to the crowds around the princesses, Kouen’s men were carrying out hushed-up orders. The contents of the orders were obvious even if they didn’t let them slip, though. With threats to the Empire’s stability both in its capital and on its edges, preparing for the inevitable was all Kouen could do.

Judar waited watching soldiers run this way and that, eating a breakfast of barely ripe peaches.

If Kouen were smart he’d dispose of Hakuryuu before he had the chance to do anything. And if Judar were smart he’d be by Hakuryuu’s side now to prevent that from happening. But nothing in Kouen’s rukh the past few days hinted towards the intent to kill Hakuryuu. Nothing.

So Judar didn’t bother finding Hakuryuu or staying close enough for his borg to work for the both of them. He’d be fine.

Somewhere between the first and second peach, Judar realized that he couldn’t be honest about the funeral. He couldn’t tell Hakuryuu about the black rukh, not yet. He didn’t know what it meant, and if he told Hakuryuu, it’d just be another similarity between his mother and Judar to him. It was pointless to tell him until he knew more about it.

Thanks to how late he’d slept in, he was able to meet with Hakuryuu after only half an hour or so of waiting. As usual, his rukh lurched as soon as he saw Judar. He quickly passed the hall’s soldiers, garnering more than a few looks on his way to reach Judar.

Hakuryuu motioned for him to come down. “This isn’t a good place to talk.”

Judar shrugged off Hakuryuu’s tone and hopped down from the tree to follow. As expected, Hakuryuu brought him back to his room.

Judar immediately jumped onto Hakuryuu’s bed and groaned. “It’s so much softer than a hotel bed,” he said. “Why do you have to keep it all to yourself?”

“…You know why.”

“Yeah, but… you’re going to use my help anyway. I’ll learn faster if I’m not half asleep all the time.”

Hakuryuu sighed. “I didn’t call you here to argue.”

Judar clenched a fist around the soft silk of Hakuryuu’s bed. Of course he didn’t. He called Judar so he could boss him around.

Despite his annoyance, he couldn’t help relaxing into Hakuryuu’s bed. It smelled the same as ever - the scent of a fresh and earthy incense that Hakuryuu lit when he was feeling down clung stubbornly to his bed. Sandalwood, was it?

“She’s a siren,” Judar said. “She has too much magoi to be human.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, there’s no mistaking it. She looked right at me and spoke to me with sound magic.”

“What did she say?”

“Just taunted you some. Said you take after your dad.”

“After my…?” It took Hakuryuu a second to get it but his rukh flickered around loudly once he understood, mirroring his angry face the best it could.

“Ugh.” Judar brought his hands to his ears to cover the sound. He was getting a headache. “Can’t you get upset somewhere else? Your rukh’s way too loud.”

It quieted immediately. Though Hakuryuu couldn’t see or hear his own rukh, if he became worried over it the rukh would act out his worries perfectly.

“Much better.”

Hakuryuu still hadn’t pushed him off his bed, which was good. He didn’t make any motion to kick Judar out, either. Instead he sat at his desk and tried to relax his posture. Somehow it only made him look even more tense. 

“Is there really no way for me to learn magic?” Hakuryuu asked.

“Yeah. None.” He didn't want Hakuryuu to hold onto a hope that he could carry out his revenge alone. It wasn’t possible.

Hakuryuu’s goal was to do something that no one wanted him to do. Not his sister, not Kouen, not any one of the millions of people of Kou. No human would help him and if he didn’t accept Judar, no one would ever accept him in return.

He’d open up again sooner or later. Though his logic was sound Judar kept repeating that to himself. It was almost as annoying as Hakuryuu’s mistrust was in the first place.

“I’m gonna take a nap,” Judar said. “After that I’ll show you my progress on clairvoyance magic. I think I’ve pretty much got the basics down.”

“Fine. But I’m waking you up in an hour.”

Judar stretched across Hakuryuu’s bed, taking in the smell once more. “Hard ass,” he mumbled.

He slept worse than he thought he would. Unable to ignore his headache and the fact that Hakuryuu had locked him in, he woke before Hakuryuu returned.

With time to waste, Judar stood, stretched, and wandered over to his old ‘bed.’ It no longer looked used. His mirror and the clothes he often left lying unfolded around it were gone.

He sat on it. It felt the same as ever, though it didn’t have the blankets to get comfortable in that it used to.

He tried the chest. Hakuryuu didn’t own any red clothes, so it was easy to see that Judar’s weren’t there. The extra blankets were at the bottom in a tidy folded pile, though.

Judar stood and looked back around. His room hadn’t changed much at all, aside from being a little cleaner. It was natural since he’d been away in Sindria for awhile.

Judar went to Hakuryuu's desk next. He opened a drawer and absentmindedly looked over its contents. Letters that were all from his sister, some extra parchment, and bottles of ink. So Hakuryuu was the type to stock up. That made sense. He never took Judar up on his offers to go to the market together and probably didn’t like shopping at all. Of course he’d rather stock up than go often if he didn’t like going in the first place.

In the next drawer over, Judar was surprised to see gold ornaments that Hakuryuu never wore, some in poor condition. Under them was a familiar metal pattern that he recognized as the back side of his mirror.

Judar smiled. He pushed the gold off and removed his mirror, careful not to whack it on the wooden frame on its way out.

When he turned it over, his smile faded. The reflective bronze surface was badly dented. Did Hakuryuu throw it against the wall or something?

…Actually, it was more like it was slammed on the corner of his desk. Either way it wasn’t a dent that couldn’t be fixed. It was a miracle that he hadn’t thrown it away for how broken it was. Judar slid it back under the golden ornaments. Some dust had been disturbed, but he didn’t think Hakuryuu opened the drawer often enough to notice.

He lay back down on the bed. Hakuryuu wouldn’t lock him in if there were anything valuable in his room, but if he wasn’t going to walk in on Judar snooping, there was no reason for him to know.

He’d just gotten curious, that was all.

Soon Hakuryuu came back with food. It wasn’t good but it wasn’t bad either. Too many spices for Judar’s tastes, but that was standard. Judar had accepted long ago that they looked for different things in food. Hakuryuu liked to try new things and different combinations of flavors while Judar preferred to just eat the same thing every day. 

That didn’t mean he couldn’t complain about it.

“You’re still putting this gross leafy stuff on everything? It sticks to meat so much it’s hard to pick off.”

“It’s good for you… or rather, it’s good for me. I don’t know much about what you should be eating.” His rukh was still unsettled by the topic, but Hakuryuu tried hard to not let it show on his face.

“It tastes bad, so it’s bad for me. You trying to kill me?”

“It’s never killed you before. Stop being so dramatic.”

As they argued, the tension in Hakuryuu’s shoulders slowly faded. Judar’s rukh responded in turn, soaring as if gloating at an invisible victory. He was suddenly very grateful that Hakuryuu couldn’t see it.

Why did he even care if Hakuryuu was tense or not anymore? After all that ordering him around and breaking his mirror, it wasn’t like they were close. They’d never been close, really.

He came to see Hakuryuu accomplish his revenge. That was all.

It didn’t take long to set up clairvoyance magic. Hakuryuu brought a spare bowl and a flask of water when Judar asked. The water wasn’t strictly necessary for higher-level spells, but it was good for beginners.

“Did you bring a knife?”

“I would think you’d ask for a needle.”

“What’s a needle?”

“…It doesn’t matter. I don’t have one anyway. I’ll get one for you later.” Hakuryuu glanced from the water to Judar. “The scrolls said it was best to start on a smaller animal. Are you that confidant?”

“There’s no way I’m watching the life of a rat go by. That sounds so boring. And I’m sure it’s not that hard anyway. I’m a great magician, remember?”

Hakuryuu raised an eyebrow but didn’t argue. He took a knife from the drawer of his bedside table. “Hold out your hand.”

Judar held his left hand above the water, baring his wrist. Hakuryuu took it in his own hand and turned it over, noting the placement and size of each vein. His eyes moved from the larger veins on Judar’s wrist to the smaller ones visible through his fingers.

“Are you right-handed?”

“Yeah.”

Hakuryuu ran the knife along Judar’s left index finger gingerly, enough for a thin white line to form in its trail but not enough to make it bleed. A test of the knife’s sharpness. “How much blood do you need?”

“A few drops should be fine. It just needs to have my rukh in it.”

He ran the knife over Judar’s left index finger once again, strengthening his hold as it approached the tip of his finger. Blood flowed out steadily, and Judar was acutely aware of the knife scraping his fingernail for a split second before Hakuryuu removed it.

It seemed like a lot of blood for such a small wound, but Hakuryuu couldn’t have done it on purpose. If he’d cut maliciously Judar’s borg would’ve activated. Blood dripped into the water readily and only then did Judar realize that he didn’t know what he was supposed to be looking for. 

He settled on an easy to reach memory: one of the countless times he’d listened to Scheherazade’s stories as a kid. It was just as easy as he thought it’d be, tweaking the reflection of his memories within the rukh to appear on the water’s surface.

Of course, all that happened was that the surface turned to an impenetrable black. Hakuryuu looked dubious until rukk flickered near Scheherazade’s face and lit her up for a split second. He jumped in surprise.

“Who was that?”

Judar didn’t bother answering until he extracted sound from the rukh.

“…though I could not see him… I knew within my heart that he was… bright…”

Scheherazade’s voice flickered out with the instability of the magic - just a little more, and…

“We spent every day together, living and eating as though we were family despite that I was born into scales and he into legs. Though I never used the power of the sea on land, he was able with his weak human hands to save the lives of many.”

Her rukh flashed once again to light up her red-cheeked smile. “But he also got into lots of trouble. Oh, but that’s a story for another day. I’ve bored you for too long, look, Titus has nearly fallen asleep.”

“That’s ‘cause Titus is a baby. I’m not tired at all.”

Scheherazade giggled, and once again her voice began to fade. “I’m sure… little…”

Judar let it fade. It was a surprisingly high maintenance magic, and he didn’t feel like wasting his magoi on such a pointless memory if Hakuryuu was going to ask him to do a specific scene afterwards.

“See? Pretty good for just a few days of trying, right?”

“It wasn’t bad. But you’ll have to do something about the unclear sound. It’s difficult to understand Torran when I can only hear half of what’s being said. I only caught a few words.”

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t lie, you were impressed.”

“Who was that, anyway?”

“An old hag I used to know. Always telling stupid stories about some human she liked…”

“Is that common?”

“More than you’d think. But humans are just humans. Only an idiot falls like her.”

Their eyes met for just a second before Hakuryuu averted his. “Show me the time you first came to land.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself. It took me two days to find my way to Rakushou. I can’t show you two days’ worth of memories. It’d take two whole days, you know.”

“Then show me something else. Something more useful.”

…Hakuryuu wasn’t looking for information to help kill his siren of a mother. He’d ask to see the magic of older sirens if that were the case. What he was looking for was most likely a reason to trust Judar. A reason why using Judar’s magic to kill would be different from his mother using her magic to kill.

But Hakuryuu said it himself many months ago - such a reason didn’t exist. Judar and his mother were no different. No memories of Judar’s could prove that wrong because it was the truth. 

“Hakuryuu. I have no useful memories. All I have are twenty years at the bottom of the sea… you understand, right? After all, you only have memories of living in the palace, don’t you?”

Hakuryuu didn’t respond.

Judar set his bloodied hand on Hakuryuu’s. “If you want a reason to trust me, I could always make one up. Is that what you want?”

“No, I…” Hakuryuu’s voice trailed off. He didn’t know what he wanted.

Judar curled his fingers over Hakuryuu’s knuckles and around his palm. He knew that Hakuryuu didn’t like his touch. Not anymore. He just didn’t care. “I don’t have a reason to trust you, either,” Judar said. “If you wanted you could kill me and skin me and sell me to buy an army of mercenaries to challenge the throne with. If you don’t trust me, they’d probably be just as reliable to you.”

“Stop.”

Judar smiled. Even when Hakuryuu took his hand back he didn’t stop smiling.

Hakuryuu stood and gathered the dishes. It only took a second for him to decide what to do with the red-tinted water - he opened his window and poured it to the overgrown courtyard’s weeds.

“It doesn’t really matter which memories you use,” Hakuryuu said. “I only need to see it to judge the reliability of the magic. Focus on making sure the picture and sound is clear for now. You’re right that it doesn’t matter which memories you use, but… next time I would like to see more of the abilities of other sirens. For comparison’s sake.”

“No problem.”

“How much money do you have for your room?” Hakuryuu asked.

“Enough for another week at most.”

“…You should stay in the palace, really.”

“You inviting me to sleep in here again?” Judar asked, pulling one of Hakuryuu’s pillows close. “Maybe then I’d get some sleep.”

“No. But you should at least have money for a room. How’d you make what you have now?”

“By selling some shit I found in the ocean.”

“I’ll make sure you’re paid before the week’s end. Be sure to practice clairvoyance magic tomorrow as well. I’ll see you then.”

“Right… Night, I guess.”

It was pitch black outside by the time Judar made it back to his own room. His first order of business once he got some money would be getting a room closer to the palace.


	13. Chapter 13

After a few days Judar was able to keep clairvoyance magic going for half an hour without any flaws in the sound or surface of the water.

Hakuryuu gave him a needle to prick his skin with instead of needing to use a knife each time. Said all the scars were getting to the point it looked suspicious, and it was best to use a needle after all. Apparently the point of a needle was to stitch human clothes together, so it was pretty normal for him to have one.

Needles were for stabbing, not slashing. His wounds became itchy faster than with the knife, and on top of that, the needle gave a smaller amount of blood. That made the magic a bit more difficult. Or rather, it made him use more magoi to make up for the smaller pool of rukh in the water.

Personally, Judar preferred to just use more of his blood with the knife. But if Hakuryuu said to use the needle he’d master it with the needle.

Hakuei left for the plains again soon after the funeral. She’d taken many of her men to the capital to show them around, but she preferred the plains in the end. They made enough of a commotion at the gates with their hundreds of horses that it would’ve been harder to ignore them than not. Hakuryuu was there at the gates too, but didn’t speak to his sister. Judar went to his side.

“Not gonna see her off?”

Hakuryuu didn’t say anything. When Hakuei looked back at him, her gaze was uncertain. Judar smiled at her and waved her away.

They must have gotten in a fight. It wasn’t hard to guess what it was about.

“Come on, Hakuryuu. I want to show you my progress.”

They left the gates before Hakuei rode off.

“I’ve been practicing lots,” Judar said. “You said I could take a week, but I think I’ve got it early. What’s next?”

“Be quiet. Don’t talk until we’re in my room.”

“Oh, right.” Most of the palace guards were with Hakuei and the halls were empty of people who could overhear their conversation. Judar did what he was told anyway.

As usual, it didn’t take too long to set up for clairvoyance magic once in Hakuryuu’s room. Just to show off, Judar used water magic to gather vapor into a liquid form in the bowl. Hakuryuu wasn’t especially impressed.

“You can figure out how to do it without water, too, can’t you?” Hakuryuu asked. “It would be inconvenient to carry a bowl everywhere it may be needed.”

“Of course. The water’s just there to create a surface for the rukh to project on. The scrolls said you can use light magic instead. But it’d be a little harder. I’m better with water magic.”

“Are you bad at light magic?”

“No! I’m not bad at any magic. Well…”

“…What are you bad at.”

Judar ran a hand through his hair, a little embarrassed. “Life magic.”

“What’s it used for?”

“Healing. Changing the growth rate of flesh and stuff like that… They used to use it in my colony to make whales huge so they’d have to hunt less of them. But I like hunting, so…”

“Is that all?”

“No. Most of the ‘curses’ in those old scrolls in the library are kinds of life magic. You can make plants do weird things with it, too. They sometimes grew kelp in my colony even without light using it. And the spell to take the appearance of a human is life magic. If I were better at it, it’d be way more efficient.”

“So it can alter bodies to that extent… Speaking of the plants, is there any other magic that can manipulate a medium like that? Metal, for example?”

“Yeah! Strength magic. It’s pretty forceful, though. Not as good for gardening.“

“I’m not trying to start a garden. Are there any other kinds of magic you could use on a small scale?”

“There are only eight types of magic,” Judar said. “Water, thunder, sound, wind, strength, light, life, and fire. They can be combined, too, like using life and strength magic at once. If that’s what you’re getting at.”

“I need something that can be used precisely,” Hakuryuu said. “For example, if you mastered life magic, could you force a plant to grow within a vein?”

“Whoa, that’s nasty,” Judar said. “What would you need to do that for?”

“Just tell me. It’s only an example.”

“I mean, I don’t see why you couldn’t. Making them grow where you can’t see them is probably really complicated though.”

“That’s fine. What matters isn’t if it’s difficult to learn,” Hakuryuu said.

“Yeah. Only that’s it’s possible, right?” 

“Exactly. If you’re certain that it is, I can try to find a way for you to practice how I want it…”

“Fine. No problem,” Judar said.

“I did lots of reading at Sindria’s library. It’s an island nation, so I expect they see lots of sirens,” Hakuryuu said. “There were many scrolls on magic.”

“What’d they have to say about an enemy prince reading up on it?”

“Nothing to my face. And besides, it isn’t as if I’m a reliable prince of the empire.”

Judar laughed. “That’s true. I can’t imagine you taking Kouen’s orders with a smile.”

At seeing he’d improved Judar’s mood, Hakuryuu’s expression faltered. Finally realized that they’d gotten distracted chatting, did he? It wasn’t only Judar that was put in a better mood, either. Hakuryuu was pushing his fight with his sister to the back of his head pretty well.

“Clairvoyance magic, right? I hear you, so you don’t have to say it.” Judar pricked his finger with practiced ease, then pressed it with his thumb to push the blood out into the water.

“If possible, I’d like to see more of the rukh.”

“Oh yeah, you can see it when it’s in my memory, right? Since I can see it.”

“Yes.”

Judar chose a memory from the time when he returned to the sea so Hakuryuu could see the rukh as well as what other sirens could do. Titus always had light magic up then, so things would be lighter for Hakuryuu to see.

The first thing he thought of started with watching Titus’s human language lessons. It wasn’t very interesting, but Hakuryuu never asked for interesting. Scheherazade’s voice filled the room with ease, clear in a way the voices hadn’t been last time he showed Hakuryuu his progress.

“In the human language, there are many words to describe things that we don’t have. Foods in particular always gave me difficulty - they eat a much more varied diet than us. Fish from the sea, large and imposing animals, tiny and beautifully flowering plants,” Scheherazade recounted in the dreamy tone she took when speaking of the world above.

“It’s all gross,” said the Judar in the water. “Some of the fruit’s okay, though.”

“What kinds of fruits did they have in Kou?” Scheherazade asked, before remembering that she was supposed to be explaining to Titus. “A fruit appears once a flower has died to give life to new plants… oh, have I forgotten to explain flowers, too?”

“No, Lady Scheherazade. You’ve explained them perfectly in your stories. What kinds of these fruits are in Kou, Judar?” Titus asked.

“Aren’t they pretty much the same everywhere? Wait, I think peaches might not be…?”

“What’s a peach?”

“You’ll figure it out after you go up. Hey, I didn’t come here to get roped into helping.”

“You could go hunting,” Scheherazade suggested. “We always need more food.”

“I’m saving magoi too. Don’t give Titus special treatment here.”

“I can go too,” Titus offered.

So they left to hunt.

Judar shifted to a more comfortable position, making the surface of the water shake just enough to disturb the image. It took a couple seconds to stabilize again.

“What should we catch?” Titus asked. White rukh fluttered around Titus’s arms as if begging to be useful.

“We could probably get lots of sea cucumbers without using too much magoi,” Judar said. “Especially if you’re gonna keep those lights up the whole time.”

“I bet I can catch more than you!” Titus said, then zipped away before Judar agreed.

“You little brat! Of course I can get more!” Judar shot after Titus’ bright trail of rukh. He used water magic to push water into the sand, disrupting any deep-sea life as he went, while Titus used a combination of light and gravity magic to move the brightly lit sand in a way that would easily reflect the location of any hiding sea cucumbers. Judar’s black rukh faded into the darkness as Titus made it out of sight.

After a few minutes of not finding anything, Judar gave up on water magic and used sound instead. With Titus gone, Judar’s black rukh didn’t light up the scenery much past the green glow of sound magic. Though it didn’t make for a very interesting scene to watch, Hakuryuu was interested enough to ask a couple questions about the way sound magic could be used underwater to pinpoint the vibrations of prey.

In the end, Titus managed to find a group of sea cucumbers first. But Judar found a few fish which tasted better anyway, so he was the real winner.

Judar allowed the clairvoyance magic to fade. “Was that what you wanted?”

“More or less. Was that… siren… also going to come to the surface?”

“Yeah. Might be up here somewhere now, either alive or dead in some market. Maybe in Reim somewhere?”

“Why Reim?”

“That’s where that old witch went when she was younger. They’re family, so…”

“What about your family?”

“I don’t have any.”

Hakuryuu tilted his head in thought. “Why didn’t you mention that before? What happened to them?”

“Well, you never asked. And how was I supposed to explain it when you thought I was human?”

“Tell me what happened to them.”

“Right… well, I dunno. My colony was all killed, but I lived. That’s about all there is to it. I was too young to remember anything.”

“Couldn’t you use clairvoyance magic to see it?”

Judar opened his mouth to deny it before realizing that he could do just that. His expression must have betrayed him, as Hakuryuu smiled.

“Judar, you’re a little slow.”

“Sh, shut up. I would’ve thought of it sooner or later.”

“Maybe after a year or two.”

“It wouldn’t take me that long! After all, I’ve been wanting to know what happened too.”

Judar looked back at the bowl. Though his rukh was still within his blood drifting to the bottom of the bowl, it was easier to cast the second the blood dripped in. At the thought of doing more magic, his stomach growled.

“Have you not eaten?” Hakuyruu asked.

“I had something on the way here.”

Hakuryuu stood from his place on the bed, sighing. “But magic takes up a lot of energy, doesn’t it? I’ll bring you something. Make sure to eat more next time before practicing.”

Judar scowled. Did Hakuryuu think he was his mom or something?

Judar moved the water to Hakuryuu’s desk and lay down on his bed. Hakuryuu didn’t lock him in this time. Maybe he felt pity at hearing that his family was dead and was trying to be nice.

That’d be annoying. But his rukh didn’t seem worried about it at all, so that probably wasn’t it. Maybe he just forgot.

It didn’t take long for Hakuryuu to bring him a simple bowl of salt pork and noodles. It was pretty good, all things considered. It was nice that Hakuryuu remembered the things he liked, though it could have just as easily been unintentional.

After their short break Judar brought the bloody water back to Hakuryuu’s bed. He pricked his left thumb and squeezed a few drops of blood into the dish.

The problem was that rukh didn’t have a script to follow. There was no ‘start’ or ‘finish’ to the memories engraved in them - the rukh’s memories were all at once, circular rather than linear. He tried looking, but all he could see was the blackness of many years lived without light. Judar scowled.

He was using a type of clairvoyance magic that depended on the thoughts of the target, so to speak. That was the only mention of it he’d been able to find in the library with enough information to guess at a formula. In this case Judar was both the caster and target. So it would make sense if it worked the same as if he’d gone with a caster-based clairvoyance magic.

But it didn’t. Not in reality. It was still relying on the target to produce the memory and bring it to the front of the mind, where the caster would then project from. So if he couldn’t bring it to the front of his mind, he couldn’t do it.

“I can’t find it.”

“Look harder.”

He did. Looked and looked but couldn’t find anything past when he could first remember. He tried altering the formula but all that did was break the reflection completely.

Judar sighed. Sweat was already forming on his face from the effort. “Guess I couldn’t master it in less than a week after all.”

“It’s fine. What really matters is that you can find a memory that can be recalled. That’s enough.”

“You’re done with clairvoyance magic, then?”

“For now. Instead, I’d like you to practice your life magic.”

“I practice it enough just by being here.”

“Practice on plants.”

Judar wrinkled his nose. He couldn’t think of anything more boring. “Plants are so different that nothing I learn on them can be transferred for use on humans, even if it is life magic,” he said.

“That’s fine,” Hakuryuu said. “I’ll draw a diagram for you later. If you can practice on plants according to that, we’ll have made plenty of progress.”

“I have no idea what you’re trying to do, but alright.” Judar wiped the sweat from his forehead. “You never had instructions this specific before. Finally committing to it?”

“I guess you could say that.”

If plants would be proof of his commitment, then Judar was happy to try working with them. He left the palace at sunset.

Evening cicadas guided him to a courtyard he could pick plants from. There were lots to choose from.

Plants with prickly leaves grew side-by-side with bright red fruits. Any other garden might have looked droopy in the height of summer, but the palace gardens were given the same attention that royalty themselves were given.

For the most part, at least. If he looked hard enough he could still find unattractive plants that he assumed to be weeds.

Human gardens were strange things. Judar had thought that since he first surfaced. Many of the plants weren’t edible and were kept reasons no deeper than aesthetics. Others were for traditional medicine, but to Judar they looked just as inedible as grasses.

He wasn’t sure exactly what Hakuryuu was looking for. He tried to use his example of veins to pick plants that might work. Blades of grass, plants with single roots. He used the vein on his hand to compare them to.

The veins on his wrist were smaller and would need different plants, though. He didn’t take off his jewelry to try to see veins in his arms, but those were probably different too. 

How frustrating. Hakuryuu’s explanation had better be real good.

Not that he was at the level to practice something specific.

His life magic was _atrocious._

Judar brought tufts of weeds and herbs back to his rented room to use in experiments - he must have looked suspicious as hell, taking dirt and weeds inside, but no one ever said anything.

It was much harder using life magic on plants than on his own body. He couldn’t feel the changes that a plant went through, so he never knew if he was using too much or too little magoi for what he was attempting.

He managed to kill the first five plants before making one grow. In his defense, killing them was a type of life magic too.

Judar thought it’d be easier to work once Hakuryuu wrote out exactly what he was supposed to be doing but it only became harder.

He didn’t just get instructions from Hakuryuu. He got diagrams cut from several different scrolls, judging by the different shades of yellow and faded ink, and similar diagrams with dark lines in the formation that Judar was supposed to figure out how to twist the plant. 

To be honest, it didn’t make a lick of sense. All Judar could figure out from it was that he probably was going to need a different kind of plant. The ones he had didn’t have the right kind of roots.

The next day he went to Hakuryuu to complain. He was back to locking his door in the evenings, but he opened up for Judar easy enough. “Couldn’t you come up with something a little easier?” Judar whined. “I’ve never had a reason to move plants and you want me to twist them down to - what was it - thirty degree angles inside of something?”

“You can’t do it?”

“W, well… I wouldn’t say I can’t, but…”

“How long will it take?”

“No idea,” Judar said. “Maybe a month or two?”

Hakuryuu closed his eyes in thought. Judar hadn’t noticed the day before, but he didn’t seem very well rested. His lips were dry and his eyes were slightly sunken. “If only I could do it myself,” Hakuryuu mumbled. “You’d think siren blood would be good for something.”

“Oh. I forgot about that.”

Hakuryuu’s glare was just as serious as he thought it’d be.

“Listen,” Judar started, “I really think it’s useless. You probably can’t use magic, 'cause you can’t see the rukh. But you still have a lot of magoi, you know? More than the average human.”

“Can magoi by itself do anything?”

“Probably not, but I can see if I can get it to react to anything. If you really want me to.”

“Of course I do. You should have mentioned it sooner if there’s an easy test,” Hakuryuu said.

“Give me your hand.”

Hakuryuu held out his hand. He looked as doubtful as Judar felt. At least Hakuryuu’s hand was warm. It’d been ages since they’d touched without a knife being involved.

Judar focused on Hakuryuu’s flow of magoi instead of the heat of his hand. He really did have a lot - less than the amount the weakest siren would have, but more than most humans Judar passed on a daily basis.

Rukh loved Judar more than anyone, so he figured that if he could get Hakuryuu’s rukh to come for his magic it shouldn’t be too much harder to move his magoi. Sound magic was fairly unintrusive. He used it to create vibrations with the hope that Hakuryuu’s magoi would rush to help give strength to Judar’s magic.

Hakuryuu’s hand twitched from the vibration but his magoi continued to flow as normal.

“At least try to help, won’t you?” Judar grumbled.

“What exactly are you trying to do?

“Get your magoi to react to magic. But it’s not doing anything.” Judar pushed harder in his frustration, and the ringing sound got louder. The rukh around each of them fluttered to help but Hakuryuu’s magoi didn’t move at all. “Maybe it’s because it’s just magic on top of your hand? I don’t want to break your wrist trying to get your magoi to work with me though…”

“That’s enough then. I understand what you’re trying to do, more or less,” Hakuryuu said. “I’ll try it on my own.”

“Don’t expect much,” Judar said. “I’ve never heard of a human using magic.”

“It’s worth trying,” Hakuryuu argued. “I’d hate to ignore the possibility if it could turn out to be useful.”

“Right… Knock yourself out.”

Hakuryuu sent him back away without giving up on the idea of Judar learning life magic. The best he could get was a taunt that if life magic was too hard, he could see if he could move metal as delicately as a plant grew.

If life magic was a challenge, Judar had no choice.

\---

The day after Hakuei left, Kouen and his brothers headed back on their way to the western front. Judar wondered if Balbadd’s puppet king had tried anything while they were gone. It’d take forever for him to hear about it either way. Everyone important spent most of their time on the other side of the continent from Rakushou, for the most part. Without anyone in the loop to spread gossip news passed through the palace at a depressingly slow speed.

Even Kougyoku went with them - though she’d rather have stayed in the capital longer, she said she wanted to be around to help her brothers if the situation in Balbadd turned sour again. Her husband, too, she added a second too late.

Just like that, Hakuryuu was the only member of the royal family left in the palace.

It was clear that his family didn’t think of Hakuryuu as much of a threat to leave him so close to the woman he desperately wanted to kill with nothing more than a few guards for supervision. For all Judar knew, they all hated the old hag and wanted her dead too.

Even so, he knew for a fact that they didn’t want the civil war that would follow if Hakuryuu took the throne after killing the empress dowager. But they left nonetheless.

That meant that Kouen at least was aware of Gyokuen’s strength. If he was confidant that Hakuryuu was incapable of killing her, his actions made sense.

No one had any confidence in Hakuryuu. His sister left without talking things out with him and with the throne in his line of vision, no one bothered to try to stop him. It was lucky for Hakuryuu - perhaps the first lucky thing that had ever happened to him.

Judar was lucky, too. If Hakuryuu had no one but him to rely on, that suited him just fine.

He was helping Hakuryuu, sure, but his reason wasn’t particularly that he wanted to kill his mother or anything. He wanted to know why she had black rukh too, and wanted to test his theories. But doing that wouldn’t require her death in most cases. He just didn’t care for her to live. Murder had already become unimpressive in itself. What did one more person matter?

Plus, he wanted to see where such an interesting story would lead. Wanted Hakuryuu’s and the rest of the human world’s attention as the great magician who spit on the Kou Empire’s bright future.

Things were still a little tense with Hakuryuu. He didn’t seek Judar out during the day and didn’t allow him to sleep in his room. They didn’t touch aside from what was absolutely necessary. And, most of all, Hakuryuu continued to keep him in the dark about his plans.

He didn’t tell Judar what the clairvoyance magic was for. Didn’t tell him what the life magic was for. Didn’t tell him what the diagrams were supposed to be or when he planned to kill Gyokuen. It was annoying because in reality, Judar would be doing most of Hakuryuu’s dirty work. But if that was how Hakuryuu decided he’d build up his trust again, Judar had no choice but to just deal with it.

After picking up so much black rukh from the sea, the strain of using magic was smaller than it’d ever been. Judar was confidant in his aberrant magic, too. If only it were useful.

Since Hakuryuu wasn’t telling him much of his plan, Judar was coming up with plans of his own. The first thing he’d do was try to kill her with ice and thunder and the most painful things he could think of in the bloodiest way he could think of. Ideally she’d be just alive enough at the end for Hakuryuu to take out his own anger on her, but Judar didn’t have much confidence in that method in the first place.

If aberrant magic didn’t work, he’d activate the isolation barrier. Judar couldn’t fight with swords or spears or any of those human tools, but Hakuryuu was pretty good with them. That was what it came down to. Judar was certain that Hakuryuu could kill an old fish out of water.

As long as the isolation range was relatively small, Judar figured he’d be able to leave it before he suffocated. That might allow her to escape easier as well, though. If they had more people it’d be easy to guard the edge of the barrier, but… they were only two. 

Raking his brain for the best possible strategy, Judar understood what Hakuryuu was feeling all those years. Everything that he thought of would be easier with more people. There was nothing that a human could do alone. Even Judar was unsure how he’d manage to kill another siren without risking his own life.

She wasn’t just some run of the mill siren, either. The black rukh that Judar was using was strong. Hers would be the same. Strong rukh that belonged to a strong siren.

Eventually Judar gave up thinking about it. He still had preparation to do - he needed to set up an isolation barrier around the inner palace.

If another siren came across the barrier points, they’d at least be able to tell that there was a large amount of magic potential in them. They’d probably break it just to be safe. But it didn’t seem like Gyokuen got out much so he figured it’d be fine as long as the actual points couldn’t be perceived from inside the inner palace.

That meant making a barrier with a diameter nearly double of what he set up on the beach as practice. It took several days to find the perfect place for all sixty points, but the payoff would be worth it.

When he finished, he reported back to Hakuryuu.

“I’ve set up everything I think you’ll need. When’re you going to do it?”

“Be patient.”

Judar scowled. “It’s been what, a year already? At this rate you’re gonna miss the perfect opportunity.”

“I won’t. And it’s been far longer than just one year.”

“Are you waiting for news from Balbadd?” Judar asked. “For Kouen to get stuck with another rebellion?”

“Not Balbadd. They’ll calm down as soon as their leader is dead. How they deal with Musta’sim will be far more interesting.”

“Why?” Judar asked. He didn’t know much about Musta’sim, as Kouha wasn’t as forthcoming with information as Kougyoku. “Is something happening there too?”

“Musta’sim is special. I’m surprised that you don’t know, as a siren.”

“Just tell me already. I only ever hear about what Kougyoku knows, and that usually isn’t much.”

“Musta’sim has open communication with a colony of sirens off its shore. Though the magic powers of sirens aren’t well known to humans, I’ve always wondered why they didn’t just kill them. There must be some advantage they’ve obtained from peace.”

“Why the sirens don’t just raze the whole country is the real question. Assuming an ‘open communication’ means open hunting.”

“It used to,” Hakuryuu said. “But they came to some sort of agreement. That agreement may or may not include mutual defense. The details were never made public.”

“So you want to see if Kouen gets his ass kicked invading Musta’sim?” Judar asked.

“That’s the gist of it, yes. However, I doubt that the sirens will come to Musta’sim’s aid. It’s more likely that Sindria takes the opportunity to expand its influence into the continent by offering for Musta’sim to join the Seven Seas Alliance at a critical moment.”

“Keep adding countries to it and I’ll get confused,” Judar complained. “What’s Musta’sim have that’s so valuable?”

“Sirens, mostly. Sirens and the money and research that goes in hand with them. The people of Musta’sim itself are nothing more than farmers and spoiled nobles. Without Sindria and the sirens to complicate matters, Musta’sim would be no harder to conquer than Balbadd. But more than any of that, it’s the last country on the continent that isn’t a part of the Seven Seas Alliance or a vassal of Kou.”

“Hmm. So what you mean is that it’s an excuse for everyone to fight.”

“Not just on a single battle scale, either.”

“A whole war.” Judar smiled. “And in that time…”

Hakuryuu smiled back.

Though Hakuryuu still wouldn’t tell Judar about his full plan, he felt a bit more in the loop after knowing when Hakuryuu planned to do it. With war in Musta’sim with Sindria, rebellions in Balbadd, and a civil war at home, it’d be a miracle if the forgotten forth prince of Kou ended up on top.

A continent-wide war sounded exciting. It was just the sort of thing he wanted to see since before coming to the human world. Judar was really looking forward to it.

“Oh yeah! Hakuryuu, how’s your progress on trying to learn magic?”

Hakuryuu grimaced. That told Judar all he needed to know and he couldn’t help but laugh. “I told you it’d be impossible.”

“It doesn’t make sense that it is. Why should I be wholly human in regards to magic when my parentage isn’t?”

“I dunno. Probably has something to do with the tricks she pulled to have a human’s kids in the first place. And if your sister’s never been able to do magic, why should you be able to do it?”

Judar forgot that Hakuryuu and his sister were fighting until his expression stiffened. He almost said something to change the topic before Hakuryuu spoke anyway. “My sister aside… it isn’t impossible that it passed down.”

“Why’s that?”

“My brothers were very strong after all.”

“Right, you had brothers, didn’t you?”

Judar hadn’t been paying much attention to Hakuryuu as they spoke and it took him a minute to realize he’d upset Hakuryuu again. He was getting pretty good at that.

It seemed like nearly every time they spoke lately he hit a nerve. Instead of Hakuryuu getting into an argument with him where their opinions differed like they used to, he usually sent Judar away now.

That was what Judar expected to happen - for Hakuryuu to just send him away again. For some reason, this time was different.

Hakuryuu didn’t say anything at all, but his lip quivered in a way that reminded Judar of when Kougyoku cried over getting married. But unlike Kougyoku, Hakuryuu was trying much harder to keep his expression neutral. It was clear that Judar actually managed to upset him instead of just annoying him.

“What’s wrong, Hakuryuu?”

He shook his head and sniffled a little. It was almost cute, in a roundabout sort of way - he was trying so hard to hide it and it just wasn’t working. “Nothing,” he said, not meeting Judar’s eyes. “Was that all you wanted to talk about?”

“I guess I could complain about how you don’t tell me anything some more.”

“Don’t bother. If that’s all you needed, I have more work to do,” Hakuryuu said, pulling his writing supplies out of his desk.

“Are you kicking me out?” Judar asked, feeling sour. So he was going to just tell him to leave after all.

“Yes. You’d just try to distract me if you stayed.”

Well, he wasn’t wrong. Judar left.

Though Kougyoku and the rest were gone, it was less obvious by the lack of seeing them and more obvious from the number of soldiers. Judar didn’t particularly miss the royal family’s absence or even generally notice it.

But he did wish that he could walk with Hakuryuu instead of alone. He had a lot of fun all those months ago, walking together through the palace’s shaded halls arguing about what they should eat for lunch and other pointless things. Since Judar returned to land they hadn’t done anything together but talk business. It wasn’t that he was getting lonely or anything, but… well, maybe he was.

Just a little.

With nothing to do in the palace, Judar left for the streets. The outer palace district had all sorts of high-quality entertainment that boasted an equally high price. Unfortunately, none of it was very entertaining by himself.

With his new ‘paycheck,’ Judar bought nicer clothes. He didn’t like wearing so much, especially in the summer heat, but with his gills running from his neck to ribs he didn’t have much of a choice but to cover up. 

There were other things he could buy, too. Skewered squid and flavored boiled eggs. Sesame covered sweets and honeyed fruits. Judar hadn’t eaten Hakuryuu’s food in months and found it difficult to compare the flavors like he used to when he went to the markets with Kougyoku.

After going shopping, his pay was barely enough for another week of renting. Hakuryuu would notice instantly that he spent it all on clothes, but that was fine. What did he expect? Getting scolded for wasting money might be a good change of pace anyway.

It was getting late by the time Judar made it back to his room. It was little more than a bed and a window, but the window was close enough to the ground for him to sit at it and watch the city from above as he half-heartedly messed with plants.

Maybe it was a weird hobby, but the human world still captured his interest in mundane ways. Depending on the time of day there were just so many of them. Enough that it irritated him.

When large amounts of humans got together, something always went wrong. On busy streets, that usually meant that someone got pickpocketed. Then a few guards would come chasing after the thief and give them a solid black eye or two before returning whatever money or valuables had been stolen.

For all the pickpocketing incidents Judar had seen, the guards had a pretty good record: a 100% capture rate. He’d never seen a thief escape before.

Judar wasn’t interested in economics, but he at least knew that in Kou thievery was unnecessary to live. So it was fun to watch those who did it anyway. The difference in social classes was small but still existed. Thievery was one way to move between classes - up if successful, and down if it failed.

After the ruckus caused by the thief died down, people were careful not to linger. Everything was back to normal in seconds.

He wondered if that was what would happen with a civil war. Would it be long and drawn out, or over in only a few seconds?

Since he was the strongest player in the game, Judar would be the one to decide. He could make the enemy suffer or win as efficiently as possible. But in the end, he’d pass that right onto Hakuryuu. He was an observer, not a real player. Whatever Hakuryuu came up with would be much more interesting.

Judar fell asleep at his window. For as much as he complained about his uncomfortable bed, he often didn’t even make it over to sleep. 

He dreamed of the same paper lanterns and thieves and stars that he saw watching the street, a human world viewed from behind a window.


	14. Chapter 14

In a month’s time, Judar was able to manipulate plants how Hakuryuu wanted. He ended up adding strength magic to it to give them more impact and move the burden across another type of magic.

With proper strengthening, he could make a plant strong enough to break down a door, which was _way_ cooler than what plants normally did, though it wasn’t anything that Hakuryuu asked him to learn.

If Judar only learned what Hakuryuu told him to, he’d die from boredom. As much as he wanted to whine about it he was sure that Hakuryuu spent his days doing equally boring things: research, studying, experimenting, and a little bit of showing that wide-eyed innocent expression he’d nearly perfected off around the palace so no one stopped to ask him what he was doing.

Judar tried to make roots grow upwards to the annoying renters above him but when he accidentally killed the plant halfway, he decided that he hated using life magic after all. He gave up on trying to show off and kept it simple while reporting to Hakuryuu.

“What do you think?” Judar asked as he made the plant twist its roots in all directions as if it were an eel searching for prey between rocks. Manipulating them to this extent was too hard with the ones with lots of leaves and little stringy roots, but it wasn’t too bad as long as it was the type of plant with just one root.

Personally, he was pretty proud of it. Life magic didn’t come naturally to him like other types. It felt like fighting against the rukh itself to learn a type of magic he had such poor synergy with.

Hakuryuu watched it intently as the root curved around a post of his bed, then rolled around in circles in the air. Judar had already shown him he could do it exactly as Hakuryuu requested, too.

“It’s satisfactory,” was all Hakuryuu had to say.

Judar frowned. “That’s it?”

“What do you mean, ‘that’s it?’”

“I mean, aren’t you going to give me another order now, like to learn how to set a continent on fire or turn a mountain upside down? Or was that really all?”

Hakuryuu looked a little surprised that of all the things Judar could expect for completing his last order, what he expected was more work. An expression that could have been guilt flashed across his face. “No… that was all.”

“So now all we have to do is wait, right?”

“It won’t be much longer,” Hakuryuu promised. “So… just be ready.”

Judar frowned. “Do you have any idea what the situation is over there? Information takes so long to travel. Are we really gonna know in time?”

“Even if we hear about it late, there should be enough time. No, there will definitely be enough time.”

“I could go there,” Judar said. “Go to Musta’sim. I have the means. I could go anywhere you wanted.”

“What good would that do? Stay here with me.”

“If you want me here. I never know these days, you know?”

“…I need you here. Don’t think about leaving unless I tell you to.”

Judar smiled and ruffled Hakuryuu’s hair. So he still had it in him to say things to charm Judar into listening. That was good to know.

Hakuryuu didn’t look annoyed but batted Judar’s hand away anyway.

Judar let his hands fall to his side again. The silence that fell between wasn’t particularly comfortable. He didn’t need to say anything and had a perfect opportunity to leave without another word, but maybe the late summer heat was getting to him.

“Hey, Hakuryuu. I’ve been wanting to ask you something lately.”

“What?”

“Do you hate sirens? Or just your mother?”

Hakuryuu tensed. “You’re guilty of the same things she is.”

Judar pursed his lips and sighed. Right. Not talking about it wouldn’t mean that he wasn’t a murderer. And Hakuryuu was probably right to dislike him for that, at least until he became one as well.

He stiffened his mouth into a smile despite himself. “Right. What about all the other ones?”

“I don’t care about them if they haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Right… I was just wondering. See you later, Hakuryuu.”

“…Yeah.”

They were in a period similar to the calm before the storm.

Once the storm began, it could do anything. Rain, thunder, or even hail. Judar had never seen hail. But if he was considering the war that would soon begin to a storm, it had to be hail. Because he didn’t know what to expect on any level.

Judar wasn’t afraid of the unknown. He didn’t feel heavy, but it was clear by looking that Hakuryuu did.

Though Hakuryuu had resolved to do anything, he was mourning something. The life he’d never have now. Judar had gone through the same mourning period after he’d killed before, too. He understood. He let Hakuryuu spend his time alone in the garden without interruptions. He mourned as long as he was allowed, alone, watching nothing pass by to the sound of cicadas.

He might have been considering the fact that he could still turn back. If he was, he never acted on the thought.

There was nowhere for him to turn back to. Not anymore. That was true of both of them now.

It was only a matter of days until things started moving again.

News made it to the palace guards first. They took their orders from Rakushou’s great generals, all gathered in an inner courtyard. The guards kept a stiff expression through the announcement, never an indication of if they approved or not.

It just was. The empire was always at war, so hearing about a new one was just the way it was.

Judar watched through the hall, taking in their neutral expressions as they nodded. Some did smile, and wished Kouen’s troops a speedy conquest, a sound like jealousy present in their voices. It was a great honor to serve the first prince in battle, after all.

From there it spread, enthusiasm growing at every step - from the guards to their families, to the shopkeepers and their sons who showed up at the palace gates begging to fight for their country. Many were enlisted. Many more were told to go home to their families and fields and work hard for the empire in mind and body by growing enough food for everyone.

It was bizarre. Judar had never seen anything like it. Trust was an invisible and powerful force nearly as strong as magic itself. Just how many humans were willing to fight for Kouen, die for him? How many knew how to capture and kill sirens, how many had done it before?

It was the first time Judar hesitated since telling Hakuryuu that he’d lend a hand. He wasn’t the first siren to come to land. Was it impossible for there to be another one somewhere in the loyal ranks of Kouen’s army? Couldn’t there be someone older and wiser and more full of magoi than Judar?

…No. It was impossible.

If Kouen had someone that strong he would have understood that Judar was a real threat. But he left him and Hakuryuu in the palace alone together. Kouen may not have been an idiot, but he wasn’t a genius either. He wasn’t unstoppable.

It was still a risk but it wasn’t hopeless. If he died for Hakuryuu it was only because he wasn’t strong enough to win for him.

Judar was just as determined as Hakuryuu to see things through to the end. He wanted to know what Gyokuen knew about the black rukh. He wanted to kill her and take it. Wanted to kill Kouen and see the continent thrown into disarray and wanted to pick up the pieces with Hakuryuu to rebuild a new empire however he liked it.

It wasn’t much longer before Hakuryuu found him. He looked different somehow. Stronger.

He must have already thrown away the last of his hesitation.

“Judar,” Hakuryuu said. “It’s time.”

Judar smiled. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Just tell me what to do.”

Hakuryuu brought him back to his room to talk strategy. He’d already spread a large scroll across his bed - Judar recognized it as a map of the Kou Empire.

“Right now, it isn’t only the capital’s soldiers leaving for war with Musta’sim. There are many forts throughout the borders.”

Hakuryuu drew a finger across several points marked with dark ink, with cleanly written numbers that Judar recognized as being in Hakuryuu’s neat script. Those must have been the forts.

“If there’s a strategic location in the empire, there’s a fort for it. There’s a constant supply network going between them, too. It’s just arrived in Rakushou - as I guessed, it was the bearer of news of the war.”

“So?”

“So in this moment, we know how long it will take to reach each base. Though many soldiers will have left to fight in the war, many more will still be standing guard.” Hakuryuu paused and looked up from the map to meet Judar’s eyes. “Your transfer magic can take more than just a couple people, can’t it?”

Judar tilted his head in confusion. “I don’t think I’d have any trouble with more. Why?”

“Take me with you to this supply base,” Hakuryuu said, tapping his finger on the dot labelled clearly as the 9th Supply Base. “I have a plan…”

If Hakuryuu’s plan was anything, it was nasty. Judar almost felt sick listening to it.

Sick with disgust. Sick with anticipation and admiration.

He agreed and memorized what Hakuryuu wanted him to do to the best of his ability. If he forgot anything, he was sure that Hakuryuu would remind him. They’d finally, finally do it.

But before he followed Hakuryuu’s orders, Judar had a little chore to take care of.

He had half a day before he needed to be back. It would be enough.

It took a lot of magoi to jump across the continent but it would be worth it. He’d been working on perfecting his transfer circle because it seemed like it could be useful for Hakuryuu, and now it was strong enough that no distance was too far to jump.

Judar pushed his hair out of his eyes. From here, there’d be no turning back.

…No, that wasn’t true. For Judar, there’d been no turning back since the time he first killed a human. He would never be the same innocent child as he used to be. Hakuryuu was following him, close behind, but he needed more power. Power that Judar could give him.

His own colony was far below the sea, but if Musta’sim’s colony was so close to the surface that they often met with humans… that made them a perfect target.

There was a reason Scheherazade had hid their colony beyond even the sun’s reaches. Judar opened the transfer circle and jumped in without another second of hesitation.

Musta’sim was only the second human country Judar saw. It was green and spread as far as the eye could see, like a beautiful fairy tale landscape. Fields of flowers and short grasses extended to the horizon, dotted in reds and yellows and even the occasional shade of purple. He remembered the word for it a second late: it was a meadow. Hakuryuu had him read a boring scroll on the world’s geography so that he’d be able to understand if someone spoke to him about the rest of the world long ago, since he’d claimed to be from a remote Torran village. He didn’t really understand the scroll, and big words in the modern language still confused him sometimes, but he did remember the fantastical descriptions of foreign lands.

He drifted through the air watching the meadows fade into huge farms until he spotted the shoreline. Just as he expected, not farther than a few miles out from the coast, his objective lay calmly under the waves.

A huge concentration of rukh like he’d never seen before.

If humans regularly killed sirens in Musta’sim’s sea, there had to be an abnormal amount of rukh circulating among its living inhabitants. And there was. It didn’t take long to find at all - their barriers might have been useful for keeping unwanted humans out, but they were nothing more than an obvious target to Judar.

He wasted no time in setting up. The colony was at the very edge of the sea so there was a chance they’d see him through the shallow water and realize something was wrong. So he transferred from point to point, careful not to get too close. His magic probably seemed no different to the inhabitants as the magic from inside their colony.

Judar set up all sixty isolation points in less than an hour. He gave himself a second to wipe the sweat from his face and catch his breath before touching his feet to the shore, just barely inside the barrier.

It wouldn’t work from the outside, so he had to do it from the inner edge. Judar activated the isolation barrier without thinking too hard about the consequences. Maybe it would work and maybe it wouldn’t. He was risking his life whether he did it or not, so what did it matter? Might as well go all out.

The strength left Judar’s lungs and his legs melted away. He had to crawl to the edge of the barrier, but he was probably the only person who knew what happened.

The isolation barrier was an advanced spell that he doubted many other sirens knew of - it was only by chance that he’d found it in that old and peeling scroll. The author may not have ever even tested the idea, since it’d needed a few minor fixes before he tested it. He had time.

Once he escaped the barrier Judar felt more confidant. With his borg, he was hard to kill. The mass of rukh had become agitated but hadn’t moved much. They probably didn’t know what was happening.

Thunder was what he needed. It would do the job quickly and thoroughly. His black rukh and his lightning magic couldn’t be beat.

_“Ill-Ramz Al-Salos!”_

As soon as he spoke the words, a negative flash forced him to close his eyes. The loud sound followed not a second later.

Everything, everything was silent. If there were birds in the distance, they’d fallen to the ground in shock. Insects quieted in fear. The sound of all that rukh at once returned to nothing.

…It worked.

Without a borg to protect themselves, without magic, sirens were weak. They only lived so long with the rukh’s blessing. Without it they were frail creatures, just the same as humans.

He didn’t feel any remorse. The only difference between killing humans and sirens was that the rukh of sirens could tell him much more.

Bringing his legs back and taking what he could of the murdered colony’s rukh before it returned to the great flow, Judar was back to Rakushou’s outskirts in no time.

He walked no more than three steps before he felt it. A clear and unmistakable voice, not one from his rukh but one within his own head, cursing him for what he’d just done.

_You selfish child! There is no higher crime than betraying your people!_

Just as he tried to think that he couldn’t recognize the voice and it didn’t matter, images of their rukh flowed through his mind. All their pain and suffering and everything they’d lived for and not been able to accomplish flashed just behind his eyelids.

_I wanted to fall in love! I wanted to help my colony with my magic! I wanted to save them from people like you!_

Disgusting. They were weak-willed and hadn’t accomplished anything as a result of their own flaws. As much as he tried to tell himself that, the feeling of failure and anguish coursed through him, from the unfamiliar rukh of a recently deceased siren to the pit of his stomach.

He could see it and almost feel it. The strength of the vision made Judar’s knees buckle. He dug his nails into his arm, trying to reach the unruly rukh. “Shut up!”

More memories. Those of different sirens. He never met them but all at once he understood their whole lives and that he had ended them - understood until he was dizzy and couldn’t hold himself up with his arms anymore. His vision almost blacked out, but he was able to steady his breath and think coherently after a few minutes of fighting it.

Judar stood unsteadily and tried to force his legs to stop shaking.

The rukh of humans never did that. If it happened again while he was fighting Gyokuen, he might not be able to follow through with Hakuryuu’s plan.

He gritted his teeth. Like hell that would happen. He’d have it under control in no time.

Judar made it back to his room in one piece but was struck by another dizzy spell soon after. This time it was enough to make him gag from the force of it. Memories he didn’t need fought to be seen. Did they plan to tear him apart from the inside?

He didn’t notice when he took it, but it seemed like there might have been some black rukh in the colony, too. Its power was unmistakable in both its presence and the pain Judar felt when the memories of a siren pushed back into his brain through the black rukh.

They hated their life and hated him from taking it from them. Hey, wasn’t that hypocritical? As much as he wanted to criticize it, too many thoughts entered and left his head until it was impossible to think anything at all.

Many hours later Judar got the hang of controlling it. He just needed to put it out of reach, separate it forcefully from his own rukh - if he needed something, he could always go back and look. Then he could deal with whatever aftermath he’d brought upon himself.

Really, of course something like that would happen if he killed a whole colony. It was only natural. After a hundred years or so he figured their rukh would lose its individuality anyway.

By the time he made it back to the palace he was late enough for Hakuryuu to be angry.

“Where have you been? I told you not to leave!”

“Come on, trust me a little more. I was just taking care of some loose ends.” Judar smiled and hoped that his face didn’t show Hakuryuu any hint of what he’d been fighting the past few hours. “Ready to head off to the supply base?”

It was easy enough to transport both himself and Hakuryuu to the fort. It wasn’t very impressive at all, especially compared to Rakushou’s palace.

“Couldn’t you have picked a better one?” Judar complained.

“Shut up, Judar.”

All the soldier’s eyes were on them, the strange people who appeared out of thin air. A general pushed through the crowd. “Prince Hakuryuu? Is that you?”

“Are you ready?” Hakuryuu asked.

“Of course. Quiet, all of you!”

Judar swung his staff, gathering the attention of the whole crowd in one place. He focused on Hakuryuu’s rukh - the memory that stood out in his mind more than any of the others was easily sent into the minds of every soldier with his clairvoyance magic.

When Hakuryuu explained his plan before, he said that his first objective would be to gain allies.

No one wanted to fight for him as things were, so he had to use clairvoyance magic to give them a reason.

They objected. No matter what he showed them, they’d remain loyal to Kouen and the future that Kouen promised.

From the beginning Hakuryuu wasn’t confidant that something so simple would work, and he had given Judar a run down of his expectations. It played out exactly how Hakuryuu had guessed it would, with everyone trusting in Kouen even when faced with the truth of their country’s corruption.

All Judar could do was grin. The more he showed them, the more vocal they got about their trust in Kouen.

Hakuryuu argued with the general a bit - it was pointless, but Hakuryuu was interested in how easily the general pointed out the contradictions in his logic. Hakuryuu was fully aware that he was contradictory and hypocritical. But he was quickly passing the point of caring. In his own mind, he was right. That was all that mattered anymore.

When he grew tired of their pointless conversation, Hakuryuu shook his head. “I thought this would be the case.” He motioned for Judar to move to the next step of his plan.

Judar readied his staff once again. “Don’t say he didn’t give you a chance to obey nicely,” he said.

Quickly and without remorse. The more he did it, the easier it got. Hakuryuu didn’t want them dead, though. Not quite. He wanted them to be his - his army that followed without believing in him. An army that wasn’t allowed a free will because if they had one, they’d be following someone else.  
That was the problem Hakuryuu had been facing since he was first struck with the desire to get revenge on his mother and Kouen. No one would take his side. Even his sister shied away from him, not seeing the same urgency in the state of their country. If she wouldn’t help him, no one would.

No one but Judar.

Still, they needed an army. It was the only way they could prevent cheap tricks by their opponents. After giving it many months of thought, reading every scroll he could find on war theory and leadership, he must have realized that it was impossible.

For a human, at least.

He had come to Judar with several requests. He had wanted to use Clairvoyance magic to share his motive with others. It was the most honest way he could have gotten soldiers on his side. But after years of fighting for Kouen, no one would accept a shady projection of Hakuryuu’s memories as fact.

So Hakuryuu had searched for another way. What he arrived at was simple biology.

The imperial library of a country like Kou was filled with records of strange studies. He learned from it that dogs, if given a treatment similar to acupuncture on their brains rather than in their muscles, lost their senses of trust for their human companions.

It was a great solution to the problem of what to do with Kouen’s loyal mutts.

It did require a pretty strong stomach, though.

It took a few days for the strange mixture of magic he was using to take complete control over the whole base. It was Judar’s first time using magic on over one hundred people at once.

He couldn’t have done it without the magoi from those sirens, as difficult as it was to harness. Briefly he wondered if the magoi from killing his own colony was used in a similar way by someone.

It was funny. Right now, Judar was killing people so he’d have more energy to kill people. It wasn’t possible for whoever killed his own colony to have used the magoi for a nastier purpose. He glanced at Hakuryuu.

Hakuryuu, who was adjusting the plant in a soldier’s brain with a needle, idly complaining that Judar should have done it right the first time, apathetic where he should have been filled with disgust.

Hakuryuu, who he’d become like this for. He noticed Judar’s staring and smiled.

Then he saw it. A piece of Hakuryuu’s rukh, always so different and pure compared to Judar’s, now dyed a perfect black.

Judar’s insides swelled with pride.

They needed the soldiers for their attack on the inner palace and to fight Kouen’s army - that was what Hakuryuu said, anyway. There were probably ways of getting an army that didn’t involve such grotesque methods. But if Hakuryuu was willing to do the same disgusting things as Judar to preserve his way of living, that was a good thing.

It was the first time they were able to see eye to eye in months, and he cherished the feeling as much as he cherished the look of anguish on the faces of their soldiers for reminding him that even humans were capable of suffering.

Once Hakuryuu’s experiments were ready, they’d kill her. Hakuryuu said it wouldn’t be much longer. In the meantime he wanted Judar to sleep at the base, close by his side. Judar was happy to oblige.

He took a bath in the military facilities, marveling at how much nicer it felt than the cramped bath they had him using in town. He hummed a song he heard in town a few days ago as he rubbed oil across his skin.

It felt nice and smelled good. That was all he thought of - the terrible things he’d done earlier in the day were already a thing of the past. 

Not that he preferred to look to the future instead. Judar no longer held the hope of things returning to how they had been. Being trusted as a tool had to be enough. He just needed to fulfill his role as a piece in the war. Hakuryuu had already resolved to doing the same.

The rooms in the base had three beds each. Hakuryuu didn’t have two people he trusted enough to sleep nearby, though, so one would remain empty.

By sundown he looked too tired to follow his own plan but Judar didn’t comment. He passed Hakuryuu on the way to his own bed when a soft voice reached his ears.

“Judar…”

Judar stopped. Hakuryuu didn’t sound like the same person who ordered the mutilation of one hundred men for his own cause just hours ago. “What is it?”

“I already knew. No, I didn’t really, but I could have put everything together easily,” Hakuryuu said. 

He paused for a moment to put his words in order. “That you didn’t want your body to be seen, you didn’t know such normal things. I knew that my mother couldn’t tolerate many different foods to that same ridiculous extent as you as well. I knew that when you first tried to speak the modern language, you had the same accent as her… All of those little things added up to something big. But I didn’t want to think about it. I wanted to kill her so bad that I couldn’t think about it.”

“…Why are you telling me this now?”

“I thought you should know. That’s all.”

Judar turned back to look at him. Under his large robes, Hakuryuu looked as small and vulnerable as he sounded.

As a human there wasn’t much Hakuryuu could do on his own to kill his mother. He had to rely almost entirely on Judar. For someone who couldn’t trust others it was a huge feat to entrust Judar with his goals and the plan to accomplish his revenge. He _was_ vulnerable. But he was strong, too.

“We'll kill her,” Judar said. He smiled confidently.

He was sure that his smiles were more convincing fakes than Hakuryuu’s.

\---

Though Hakuryuu didn’t have many soldiers, he made up for his lack of numbers with strategy. Most of Kouen’s soldiers were too far away to save Gyokuen. Those that weren’t were mostly trained for defending the palace from particularly ambitious thieves and careless spies. A full scale rebellion was above their pay grade.

After all, a foreign army had a whole continent to cross before they could reach Rakushou. Why should their capital be heavily defended at all?

Judar transferred their army to the front door of the inner palace. They weren’t much, but they would die for their cause. The plants in their brains would make sure of that - they were no longer capable of thinking rationally or carefully.

They made it easy for Judar and Hakuryuu to get in. The left and right generals didn’t even bother to raise a hand against their precious first emperor’s son.

And there she was. The woman who killed Hakuryuu’s brothers spoke in the voice he’d heard from within the black rukh. “Hakuryuu, and… Judar, was it? Though I don’t remember your parents calling you by that name.”

Hakuryuu’s head whipped around to face him, eyes flaring with accusation. “Judar, you…!”

“I didn’t know anything,” Judar said. “Not for certain.” It wasn’t like he could tell Hakuryuu his suspicions, anyway. Without proof it’d just be another reason to think of him as similar to his mother.

He gripped his staff firmly. This was his chance to get revenge, too. Not just Hakuryuu’s.

Revenge for his parents. Revenge for whispering to him through his rukh, encouraging him to commit atrocities before he ever considered it to become who he now was. Revenge for their similarities. Revenge for no reason at all - after all, what did the reason matter? It never did, not when it came to murder.

Gyokuen smiled and descended the few steps from the throne to be even with them. “You two are a strange pair,” she said. “Having a play at being king and magician even as you don’t trust each other, isn’t that charming?”

“I am going to kill you,” Hakuryuu said. He held his polearm at the ready as if he didn’t know that it would never be able to save him from her. Judar stood close enough for his borg to cover Hakuryuu if she tried anything.

“Have you enjoyed dreaming that?” Gyokuen asked. “Enjoyed the dream of killing me…?”

“Judar,” Hakuryuu said and signaled for him to act.

Just in case, he first tried boiling her blood. If she were a human, that would’ve worked nearly instantly. As expected, her borg activated instead. An ugly borg that reached far past its own limits to attack as well as defend.

“Thought so. Well, Hakuryuu. I’ll leave the rest to you.” As Hakuryuu ran for her, Judar retreated to the gates of the inner palace.

After he activated the isolation barrier, Judar missed most of the action. He had to focus on leaving the barrier and recasting all his magic - that meant using energy from the sirens of Musta’sim.

As their voices entered his head, Judar resisted the tremor that overcame him. It was painful but he could take it. His pain tolerance was getting pretty high. Soon it’d be so high that they wouldn’t even bother him.

He looked back to where Hakuryuu was fighting to see much more motion than he thought he would.

Was she… using a sword? A siren?

He tried to watch through the pain in his head - no, he did watch it, and saw everything. He just didn’t understand any of it. Didn’t understand when the old hag had Hakuryuu pinned to the ground or when the old generals came to Hakuryuu’s aid.

It was strange. There was something wrong with the scene, but he couldn’t place it in his near delirious state.

What was it? He was watching humans fight. No, he was watching humans fight a siren. He could go in and fight, too.

Or… he couldn’t. It came back to him at once. He’d just re-casted his legs, how did it take him so long to notice?

That woman was inside the isolation barrier fighting. Running on her legs just like a human and fighting with a sword just like a human.

Judar could see it but not comprehend it.

His mind didn’t clear until Hakuryuu and those generals stopped moving. Though wounded, Gyokuen turned to leave the barrier.

If she got out she’d be able to heal her wounds. Judar waited at the edge of the door for her. When she came, he pushed her over so that she was inside the barrier and he was outside of it.

“Some handy magic you’ve got.”

Gyokuen smiled the same charmingly grotesque smile she’d given him at the funeral. “Hehe… heh… that’s right, you’re only a child, aren’t you?”

“A child’s gonna kill you,” Judar said simply. When she tried to get up again he grabbed her by the hair to throw her back on the ground. As long as his legs didn’t enter the barrier, he’d be set. “Tell me. Did you do something to my rukh? There were those in Musta’sim as well…”

“You’ve gone that far? What a busy child.”

“Cut the crap,” Judar sneered. He saw movement out of the corner of his eye, but with Gyokuen’s eyes trained on him, he didn’t dare look up and alert her. “This black rukh. What’s its purpose?”

“It’s purposeless. Isn’t that the beauty in it? No one’s purpose has tainted it but God’s.”

“God…?”

Gyokuen inhaled sharply, her smile never fading. She blinked tears out of her eyes. They ran through the caked mask of her make-up, changing her from someone Judar thought he had more or less understood to someone who was beyond his comprehension.

“What the hell,” Judar said, taking a step back and trying to hold back a disbelieving laugh. “Hakuryuu… I think she’s a goner whether you take her out or not. But I know you’ve been dying for this moment.” Judar’s eyes flicked to the figure that had finally approached Gyokuen’s back. “I’ll leave her to you, okay?”

“Hakuryuu…?” Gyokuen blinked and it was over. Hakuryuu didn’t hesitate. He’d come too far for that. Her head rolled unceremoniously away before twisting into a manic expression.

“Ah!”

Judar grabbed a handful of Hakuryuu’s torn shirt to pull him out of the barrier. Tripping over Gyokuen, pulling Hakuryuu too quickly and losing his balance, they didn’t land gracefully at all. But they made it out in time - his foot brushed through the barrier again for a split second and reverted to fin, but returned to safety before his vision went white.

The explosion was the loudest thing Judar had ever heard. His ears rang and Hakuryuu looked at him, dazed, as the world around them became dust. He didn’t move from his place within the borg’s safe haven until the explosion was long over.

Judar was the first to speak once the ringing in his ears subdued. “You look like shit, Hakuryuu.”

Hakuryuu used his polearm to steady himself as he stood, then held out a hand to Judar. “So do you.”

“I can’t. Give me a minute, I’ve got half a tail. Second later and both you and half my tail would’ve been dust.” Judar examined his fin halfheartedly. “Bitch blew her own rukh up. Doubt it’ll make it back to the flow like that.”

“Is that what happened?”

“Yeah. It’s a shame, too. There’s all sorts of stuff I would’ve liked to learn from it,” Judar said as he recreated his left foot. He was about to take Hakuryuu’s hand but he’d withdrawn it to use it to hold himself up against the wall instead. “Hakuryuu? Are you okay?”

“Mm,” Hakuryuu breathed. “I just… need some…”

He collapsed back on himself. Judar almost laughed. “Seriously? Come on, celebrate a little. Don’t just faint.”

He rubbed Hakuryuu’s shoulder to wake him back up but it didn’t work. He was really out. Judar moved his hand to feel his heartbeat. When that sounded fine, Judar sighed in relief.

“Don’t scare me like that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in snb, members of al-thamen can talk to judar through his black rukh. in the kou empire arc, over six months after having taken the rukh from magnostadt judar still has difficulties controlling it. part of that’s self-inflicted, but i guess killing was never meant to be painless.
> 
> although this is canon divergent, because judar is supporting hakuryuu gyokuen was killed in a similar way. from here on the events won’t be so similar, for better or worse.


	15. Chapter 15

Judar expected Hakuryuu to wake soon after he fainted, assuming it was in part due to the shock of the explosion. After twelve or so hours he realized that he was being far too optimistic about the human body’s ability to heal in a timely manner.

He wasn’t an expert on humans, and since the generals offered, he let them bandage Hakuryuu before bringing him back to his room. He remained unmoving through the process apart from occasionally making pained noise in his sleep.

When Hakuryuu woke he limped out of bed to change his bandages and clothes. By the time he limped back he seemed to have already exhausted all the energy his body could manage to create. He fell right back asleep, or maybe fainted again. It was hard to consider it progress, but at least it meant he wasn’t on the verge of death.

Not that Judar ever thought he was. Hakuryuu was far too strong to die from a fight like that. Even if she’d slashed and stabbed him a few times, Judar had protected him from the worst of it with his borg. He _had_ to be fine. It was only a matter of time.

The following day Hakuryuu’s eyes were open but he otherwise didn’t appear alert. Judar had to walk right up to his side after entering just to verify he wasn’t sleeping with them open. It was hard to say if his eyes being open was a good thing for how unwell he still looked. He looked in every way to have gotten sick on top of everything. 

“You alright?” Judar asked.

“…Yes. I’ll recover.”

Judar hummed and was about to leave when Hakuryuu’s hand tugged at his sleeve.

Hakuryuu didn’t say anything, but the implication was obvious - that he should stay for a bit.

Judar let Hakuryuu’s hand gently pull him closer. He didn’t verbalize his request or meet Judar’s eyes.

Not knowing what else to do, Judar sat on the edge of the bed and ran his hand through Hakuryuu’s knotted hair, over his sweaty and scarred back. The fact that he’d just fearlessly murdered his mother was lost somewhere on his stiff spine. Whether he had regrets or just vulnerabilities, Judar didn’t know.

What he did know was that he had the urge to see this to the end. To stand by Hakuryuu until the end of his fragile life, offering him support long after the rest of the world cursed his name. They would fight and burn and die together, having done nothing but spread hate and suffering in their paths.

\---

Hakuryuu was a strange person.

His injuries were too bad for him to check the progress on the reconstruction of the inner palace, too bad for him to reassure the anxious people of the capital, and too bad for him to do much to entertain himself.

But he still insisted on making every decision himself. He didn’t even trust the right and left generals who were loyal to his father on account of them not fighting Gyokuen of their own violation long ago. It went without saying that he didn’t trust Judar to make important decisions either. He did trust him well enough to tell him to tell the generals his decisions, which was an improvement. One that Judar could have gone without, since it meant more work, but still.

Though Hakuryuu insisted on staying in the loop, he wasn’t acting himself.

The first thing Hakuryuu said that had nothing to do with his mother or the army was… well, not very coherent.

“Judar,” he said, not bothering to sit up to talk. His wounds were bad but not fatal - what was really bad was the emotional impact of it all. He seemed empty and a bit disturbed.

“What is it?” Judar asked. He sat at the edge of Hakuryuu’s bed to talk. He had faith that Hakuryuu would make a full recovery, so he didn’t mind babying him a bit - just a bit! - before then.

“A long time ago, I broke your mirror. I’m sorry.”

Judar almost rolled his eyes. “It was just something I bought while Kougyoku was dragging me around the markets, not some ancient heirloom.”

“Do you have any of those? Heirlooms, I mean.”

“…Kinda. I’ll show you once you’re recovered,” Judar said. “If you even remember this conversation then.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

Judar smiled and put a hand on Hakuryuu’s forehead. It was hot through his bandages. “I don’t know too much about human health, but I’m pretty sure you’ve got a fever.”

Hakuryuu didn’t say anything. He just closed his eyes.

“Have you ever had a fever before, Hakuryuu?”

“…I have.”

“What was it like then?”

“I don’t remember. Not really.”

Judar moved his hand from Hakuryuu’s forehead to run it through his hair. It was damp like he’d been sleeping poorly. “Why would you remember it this time, then?”

He didn’t respond again. Eventually his breathing grew even. Judar sighed.

He wasn’t the type to get a kick out of watching someone sleep. He’d rather talk to him. Judar pulled his hand out of Hakuryuu’s tangled hair and stood.

Information travelled slowly. It would take time for news of the empress’s murder to reach Kouen, so Hakuryuu had all the time in the world to recover.

Since he didn’t think Hakuryuu really wanted the keys to his room in anyone else’s hands, the responsibility of keeping Hakuryuu alive fell mostly on Judar. Hakuryuu could get up and all, he was just… too tired, mostly. Sick. So it wasn’t like it was a huge responsibility, other than having to play nice while he recovered.

The most annoying task was keeping Hakuryuu fed. That wasn’t to say that he went through the trouble to do everything himself, though. Of course he didn’t. He had a chef prepare it.

Judar noticed while looking for the chef he normally had prepare his own food that much of the palace staff had fled. Judar figured they weren’t too keen on plants. He smiled at the thought. More to Kouen. A few humans would be nothing considering how easy dealing with Gyokuen was.

Hakuryuu complained when Judar first brought him food. “It’s in the wrong dish.”

“Wow,” was all Judar had to say. “You have a lucky bowl or something?”

“…Not that. This isn’t safe. Please make me something yourself.”

“I don’t know how to cook, idiot. No stoves in the ocean. Wait, actually, I did find one once. But I blew it up.”

Hakuryuu looked pretty lost. His fever clearly wasn’t doing him any good.

“What I mean,” Judar clarified, “is that all I can bring you are peaches. Or maybe something from the market? I guess if I use transfer magic it might stay hot.”

“That’s fine,” Hakuryuu mumbled. “Anything as long as it’s not from here. You should do the same. Not eat from the kitchens, I mean. We’ve just killed the empress after all…”

Judar rolled his eyes. It seemed the fever amplified his paranoia, too. “You owe me when you’re better, alright? A three course meal. Three whole courses! And no vegetables.”

Hakuryuu didn’t respond. He’d fallen back into the light sleep Judar was getting used to seeing.

It was annoying because Judar had to wake him up several times a day to feed him and give him water. There were doctors in Rakushou, sure, but Hakuryuu protested every time Judar threatened to bring one in. Really, he valued his life more with a fever than without it.

Day three saw some improvement. Hakuryuu was sitting upright and staring into nothing instead of laying down staring into nothing. Yay! Progress.

“How’s your fever?” Judar asked. “Also, are you still gonna tell me to throw it out if I get you something the kitchens? I really don’t feel like going all the way back into town today.”

If Hakuryuu heard him, he didn’t react. Judar felt his forehead again.

“You don’t feel any worse?”

“…No. I’m fine. You don’t need to keep coming in and checking.”

“I’ve got nothing better to do. Besides, you don’t want anyone else in here, right? I’m the only one who can pass on orders to your army.”

“Mm.”

Hakuryuu’s absolute apathy at the situation pissed Judar off. Since he was trying to play nice, he just sighed and left.

As the days stretched on Hakuryuu became more coherent. The fog over his eyes was clearing, so to speak. Without that fog Hakuryuu’s gaze seemed more intense than usual. Judar forgot what he was talking about getting lost in Hakuryuu’s expression more than once.

“Why’d you stop?” Hakuryuu would ask.

And Judar wouldn’t know what to say. He didn’t know how to tell Hakuryuu that he wasn’t used to seeing him hang onto every word he spoke, no matter how frivolous the topic.

Maybe Hakuryuu was finally bored of sitting in bed all day and glad for the entertainment. He hoped so.

When he wasn’t with Hakuryuu, Judar spent the day surveying the city. Everyone was nervous. As expected, none of them wished for a civil war. They only remained in Rakushou because they had family and shops and, as a few whispered, they were sure that Kouen would retake the capital sooner than later.

They believed in Kouen. Their blind faith was almost charming.

A week after Gyokuen’s death Hakuryuu was up and walking around the palace again, though he wasn’t much more lively.

Judar smiled at him anyway. “You’re still alive, huh?”

He mumbled a few questions about Gyokuen. Judar responded in kind.

Hakuryuu was not ready to be emperor. Though the injuries of his body were healing, he was still unable to comprehend his next step. Judar didn’t rush him. Whatever Hakuryuu wanted to do aside, what he would be doing was one of two things: fight against Kouen in a civil war or surrender the throne and face execution.

Judar knew Hakuryuu. He’d never surrender, not after he worked so hard for it.

He waited. Each day Hakuryuu’s rukh corrupted itself more as he listened to reports of deserters at the throne or spoke to advisors who recommended surrendering, like a candle slowly flickering out long past midnight. Judar had no idea what the cause of his rukh’s change was but he was fascinated by it. It was possible that his own rukh had done the same thing when he was a child. If that was the case, there had to be a reason for it. But he couldn’t think of any. 

_It’s purposeless. Isn’t that the beauty in it? No one’s purpose has tainted it but God’s._

Was there any meaning in that phrase, or were they just the words of an old woman whose body outlived its mind? That happened sometimes with sirens. Judar tried researching religions and gods but all of it was too human. None of it took the rukh into account. None of it was purposeless.

The only thing he could think of was that long ago, he’d heard Yunan and Scheherazade talking about it. Why only sirens had the divine blessing of the rukh, the ability to use the world’s own life for their own means. For what purpose were they strong enough to make the world’s fate move so much faster than humans?

He didn’t understand it and soon got bored of listening to them, just as he was getting bored of reading about it now. He’d just tell Hakuryuu later and have him do all the thinking.

He took to spending his extra time by Hakuryuu now that he was doing something a little more interesting than staring into nothing. He didn’t speak much to Judar but listened with interest whenever Judar had something to say.

It shouldn’t have been as surprising as it was. Judar had always known that it was Hakuryuu’s revenge keeping him from having interest in other things. It was just unexpected that the first thing he chose to have interest in was Judar.

Then again, it wasn’t like Hakuryuu had much else.

Days later Hakuryuu’s proclamation of his intent to kill Kouen came as no surprise. His reasoning was charming, though. “For the good of the world,” and all.

Judar’s grin didn’t leave his face as Hakuryuu sent out an imperial edict to the worried people of the empire declaring Kouen and his followers as traitors to the throne. When Hakuryuu turned to face Judar again, he too wore a smile.

“Judar… there are things in this world that I can’t accept. Things that I hate and don't want to exist anymore. With them in my sight, I can't live. I can’t move forward. I can only…”

“Destroy them.”

That was how he felt when he used to leave at night to kill humans. There were many humans on the street but he was always drawn to the happiest of them - the people who could do whatever they wanted whenever they wanted. The people that he couldn't accept, no matter what.

Hakuryuu nodded. “Yes. I need them to disappear. You understand… don’t you?”

Their eyes met. Neither of them laughed but both thought of how funny it was. A king needed fancy logic to declare the other princes as imposters but Hakuryuu’s true feelings were just that - an inability to accept other ways of thinking.

If Hakuryuu didn’t want to see things he hated, Judar would shield his eyes from them. If he wanted them gone, Judar would dispose of them for him. They were a perfect match.

Judar began the process of controlling the rest of the palace’s residents on Hakuryuu’s orders. Anyone who had the power or the mind to disobey him was unfit for living as themself. That was pretty much everyone. 

The more he did it, the easier it was. He was getting comfortable with it, from the act itself to the immense magoi burden activating all the plants at once would be. As long as he had the magoi from Musta’sim’s colony, he’d be good to go. The only hard part would be using it without withering embarrassingly on the floor in front of Hakuryuu. Ugh.

During the evening he had the chance to eat with Hakuryuu again. It’d been so long that he’d forgotten what they used to talk about, but it wasn’t hard to find something new while Hakuryuu made and served food.

“When do you think the war’s gonna start?”

“It’ll take time for Kouen’s army to reach us. He’ll most likely gather them in Balbadd, since it’s the second largest city in the country now. Then they’ll have to cross the plateau and the plains… we have plenty of time to make preparations while they’re marching. I’m confidant that we have the upper hand, even with how many more soldiers they have.”

Judar smiled. “Think they’ll figure it out about me by then?”

“Undoubtedly. But I don’t think they’ll be able to do anything about it. A strong sword is the easiest way to fight a siren, but you can just fly. I suppose they could throw them, but such a clumsy tactic won’t kill you, right?”

“Of course not. Besides, my borg’s pretty solid. A sword can’t do anything to it.”

“I guess it’s only fair that you have a strong one, since you can’t use healing magic.”

“H-hey! Lots of sirens can’t use it! It’s not just me!”

Hakuryuu laughed. Judar was sure he’d heard the sound before, but he couldn’t remember if it always made him feel so warm.

It was a warmth that he didn’t feel like he should accept. But what he should do and what he wanted to do never did line up right, especially not when Hakuryuu looked at him with happiness; the fact that he wasn’t alone was probably more important than that he was with Judar, but that didn’t matter.

Finished eating, Hakuryuu set his bowl aside. “I don’t want you sleeping in town anymore,” he said. 

“Finally gonna have some compassion for my stiff back?”

“It’s more that I find it unbecoming of your position. Should the retainer to the next emperor really be renting his own room?”

“The emperor. My emperor. I like the sound of that.”

Hakuryuu stood and when Judar followed, he took his hand. Hakuryuu’s hand was colder than the late summer air, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. Not at all.

He didn’t let go of Judar’s hand until they were in his room. Once there, their hands separated only out of necessity.

“Does my promotion mean I’m allowed back on your bed?” Judar joked.

“If you want. I could prepare another room to your liking if you’d prefer that, as well.”

“No. I want to stay in here. But you already knew that, right? Or you’d have taken me elsewhere.”

Hakuryuu touched his hand to his temple and turned his face just a little to hide his expression from Judar. He vaguely remembered Hakuryuu doing that once or twice in the past to hide his embarrassment.

So… was that it? Were they on good terms again just like that? It almost felt too easy. He didn’t have to worry about Hakuryuu finding out he was a siren anymore. He should be as relaxed as possible, and enjoy his new position to the fullest.

He sat on Hakuryuu’s bed, then rolled across it. Stretched out to take up as much room as possible.

He couldn’t relax, even when he forced his face into a content expression. 

“You act like I’ve never let you sleep on it,” Hakuryuu said, amused.

“You never _invited_ me to. I always had to invite myself.”

Hakuryuu didn’t say anything. He removed his shoes and sat on the bed, watching Judar.

He looked so stiff and out of place that if someone were to see them they’d think it was Judar’s bed and Hakuryuu was the one invited to spend the night. He smiled at the thought.

“You look like you want to ask me something,” Judar said. “You’re making that face, what do you call it… kinda stern?”

“I don’t think that’s the word you’re looking for.”

“What’s your question?”

Hakuryuu pursed his lips. “I, um…” His gaze slid from Judar’s face across his clothed body.

Judar felt like he kinda got the hint, but also didn’t. “What? Should I change clothes? You haven’t changed either. But I bet it’d be real uncomfortable to sleep in that.”

Hakuryuu huffed. Obviously Judar was supposed to get the point by now - at least, Hakuryuu thought he should. “It’s not that. I want… to know more about you.”

“More… how?”

“Anything you want to tell me is fine,” Hakuryuu said. “I was thinking about it when you were… helping me, when I was injured. You know so much about me but I know almost nothing about you.”

“You know lots about me.”

Hakuryuu shook his head. “I know what you’re usually like. I know what a few of the people you grew up with look like. Beyond that, nothing.”

“What else matters?”

“I know nothing about sirens. Nothing but myths and how to kill them. I don’t know what you really like and what you think is unforgivable. Please tell me.”

Judar sat up, legs crossed, tapping his fingers on the fabric of his pants idly. “You can probably just read about what you need to know. There are tons of scrolls about sirens and stuff in the library.”

Hakuryuu sighed, exasperated. “Were you always this dense?”

Judar scowled. “Hey, what’s that supposed to mean? I’m trying to be helpful here!”

Hakuryuu suddenly grasped Judar’s face in his hands. “I want to know about _you._ Tell me why you came to land.”

“Because I wanted to see it. The human world sounded interesting.”

“Did it live up to your standards?”

“I wouldn’t have come back if it didn’t. Anything’s more interesting than the bottom of the sea,” Judar said. He glanced at Hakuryuu’s arms, then his intense expression. “Usually you’re way different from this.”

Hakuryuu dropped his hands instantly. “Sorry.”

“I didn’t say I hated it. Just that you’re acting different.”

Judar took the opportunity to curl his hands together in Hakuryuu’s. “Maybe it’s because you got your head whacked around so much recently. Humans need a borg.”

“What’s it like having one?”

“I dunno. Normal. You used mine when we were fighting Gyokuen. Didn’t you notice?”

“No… I guess not.”

Their conversation faded into a comfortable silence. Hakuryuu was running his thumbs over Judar’s palms. It kinda tickled. 

They were running on a different wavelength that Hakuryuu didn’t know about. That was how he could be so carefree all of a sudden. Judar couldn’t stand that.

“Hakuryuu,” he said, “the other night, no, a month ago, when we were at the supply base. Do you remember? You told me something interesting. About how you’d already guessed I was a siren.”

“That wasn’t interesting,” Hakuryuu said quickly. “Besides, you deserved to know.”

“I thought it was interesting. So I’ll tell you something interesting in return. Did you know that you’ll die soon?”

Hakuryuu looked startled, but his expression didn’t dissolve into distrust like Judar was so used to seeing.

Judar laughed. “Not like that,” he said. “Not soon like that. But to me—” he tightened his grip, “to me you will die very, very soon.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know why you can’t read it in the scrolls. I never saw it in one, at least. But there are more differences to us than scales and magic. Because unlike you I’ll never get old and die. Maybe there’ll never be an end to this life where I’ve killed and mutilated people on a whim. Isn’t that funny?”

Once Judar started talking about it, it was hard to stop. Hakuryuu didn’t need to ask if he was telling the truth. He was probably… more startled that Judar was telling him the truth about something than the truth itself, at this point.

“A retainer is not to outlive his liege,” Hakuryuu said.

“You’re gonna have to think real hard about life expectancy then. Maybe a few of those immortality potions they sell for thousands will do it.”

“You’re exaggerating, aren’t you? You must only mean one or two hundred years.”

“That’s such a human thing to say.”

“Is it? What would the siren response be?”

“Let me think… ‘in two thousand years, you’ll lose the rukh’s favor acting like that.’ I think I’ve been told that a few times.”

“Thousands of years… what will you do?”

“I dunno. Actually, I might just kill myself when I get tired of it. What do you think?”

Hakuryuu dropped his head to lean on Judar’s chest. “I… wouldn’t blame you.”

Judar wrapped his arms around him as he had when he was sick. Hakuryuu had never craved his contact before then, but by now he was getting used to providing the physical comfort Hakuryuu wanted, as often as he wanted.

Hakuryuu was clearly the same person, but he was changing. Growing. Human. Judar rubbed circles on his clothed back and ran his fingers down his side.

The light from the window was growing thin. Soon the day would be over and he would be back to sleeping in Hakuryuu’s bed as he sometimes did nearly a year ago.

Hakuryuu wasn’t a novelty anymore. He was now the single person who Judar understood most in the world, and yet he was often still perplexed by the things Hakuryuu did. This was the first time Hakuryuu showed him what it was like to be trusted. No one had ever given Judar all their trust, after all.

Trust was letting Judar bring him food and water while he was unable and holding him when he was feeling vulnerable. Taking Judar hand in hand to his room and wanting to know more about his life. A new feeling, but not a bad one.

Judar watched Hakuryuu’s now dark rukh flit around the room. Despite their new appearance, they were the same as ever. So honest that Hakuryuu was hardly able to lie to him. Anxious, sad, and trusting.

He did not love the human in his arms. It was still impossible for Judar to think of Hakuryuu as much more than a short-lived existence - one that he liked but would soon disappear. But he no longer thought of him as a toy he’d humored with his magic on a whim. Hakuryuu was just Hakuryuu. An impossibly strong and impossibly weak human that Judar wouldn’t abandon for anything.

The days that Judar looked forward to their shared nights just to catch Hakuryuu’s eye were long over. So were the days of only taking orders.

Now, if Judar caught Hakuryuu’s eye in the halls, Hakuryuu would smile. He was open to hearing about whatever Judar wanted to talk about, unless he wanted to talk for an hour. Then he’d still tell him to shut up and leave to get some work done, and somehow even that was welcome. An emperor couldn’t spend all day chatting aimlessly, after all.

The change probably wasn’t something that anyone else noticed or cared about. No, they definitely didn’t notice - at this point in time their lack of closeness in reality would be a worse scandal than if they were fucking. Not that fucking would be much of a scandal as long as they all thought he was human. The emperor could do whatever he wanted, after all. And it seemed that the men of Kou’s palace tended towards familiarity with both court ladies and their fellow men anyway.

Apparently that wasn’t the case farther west. Judar was glad to be in Kou. Though it wasn’t his country by birth, it was easy to think of it as his home.

Hakuryuu didn’t shy from Judar’s touch anymore. It wasn’t unusual for Judar to follow Hakuryuu to the inner palace to watch him prepare for the coming war, but he got bored. So he’d grab Hakuryuu’s arm, tell him he should be more interesting or else they’d forget his orders, making sure to pout just like he’d seen girls in the market do, and leave.

At first the soldiers were so shocked that some of them gasped out loud but now they were used to it. Hakuryuu never told him to stop. Judar thought he might even like the attention.

They didn’t kiss as much as they used to, but Hakuryuu didn’t object to Judar showering his faces with them when he was in the mood to. Occasionally Hakuryuu returned it, though his shyness was apparent in his rukh. Rather than not wanting to kiss Judar, a fear of rejection Judar hadn’t noticed before was holding him back. He was easy enough to reassure. Not with words, but with affection.

Judar was curious where it came from in the first place. Something his sister imparted on him, maybe. Or he was self-conscious about how he’d treated Judar in the past to the point of worrying about fixing it.

Hakuryuu was definitely strange. Normally someone would be more worried about going to war than being affectionate. Then again, Judar wasn’t worried about going to war either.

Summer changed to autumn with little word from Kouen’s faction, other than that he’d declared himself emperor in Balbadd. They had to assume that Kouen’s troops were on their way.

“I’m confidant in the level of magic you have now,” Hakuryuu told him quietly - even if the guards were effectively mind controlled, he still erred on the side of caution. “How’s your magoi?”

“Never been better,” Judar said. Hakuryuu didn’t ask where he got enough to kill an army when he used to have trouble just keeping his body put together right. Judar was sure he had some idea, though. He’d just accepted that Judar had to kill for it. Hakuryuu no longer had the moral high ground to look down on him from, after all.

Judar loved that. He played with the ribbon tying Hakuryuu’s hair as they talked about the coming war. He could feel the eyes of every guard in the room on him, but when he turned to look, they all pretended like they hadn’t been watching.

He dropped the ribbon and smiled, then spoke loudly. Messing with the guards was just so fun. “I want to eat crab today. The really big kind, not the ones that are a pain to get meat out of.”

“You’re so spoiled.”

“Who’s the one spoiling me? Let’s have crab. You have the right to eat like a king now, you know.”

Hakuryuu rolled his eyes. “Catch a crab yourself if you want one. I have better things to do than scour the next city over for fresh crab for you.”

“But if you didn’t…”

“Shut up, Judar. That logic will never work.”

Needless to say, Judar’s face was just as well known around the palace. None of them but the left and right generals to the crown knew that he could use magic, and Hakuryuu instructed them to keep a tight lip to avoid the information from spreading. Word did not get out.

The whole palace knowing would be too huge of a risk. Kouen’s army was large. The possibility that he would be prepared to fight a siren couldn’t be ignored.

So that wasn’t the reason he was well known. It was because of his status as Hakuryuu’s favorite. His lover.

“Ever going to make good on that rumor?” Judar teased as they prepared for bed.

“Rumor… oh. That.” Hakuryuu sighed.

“What’s up? Not a fan of gossip? I think it’s pretty funny.”

“It’s not that,” Hakuryuu mumbled. “I wondered about it too, actually.”

Judar adjusted their pillows, kicking his legs around absent-mindedly. “About the rumors? Don’t tell me you’re gonna start getting mad about me touching you again.”

“No,” Hakuryuu said simply. He sat on the bed and fixed the pillows that Judar had just messed up. “I was wondering about your body. You never let anyone see it. I assumed it was impossible to make good on the rumors.

Judar sat up. “It’s just a body I made with magic. It isn’t the real thing, so if you looked at it closely it would be pretty gross… At least that’s what all the others said.”

Hakuryuu pushed at the edge of fabric on Judar's shoulder slowly until it slid off. Judar didn't stop him.

“…Your gills…”

“Yeah. They don’t go away.”

“It’s not that. I meant the scar.”

“Had it since I can remember. I guess when I was taken in by the colony that raised me, it was already like that.”

“You were hurt?”

“When my colony was murdered. I was probably meant to be a target too. But I never even saw the place it used to be until recently, since no one in my adoptive colony ever took me.”

One of Hakuryuu’s hands was resting on his shoulder. Its weight felt reliable. He tugged at the knot holding Judar's clothes together with his other hand as if asking for permission to open it.

“Go ahead.”

“Your colony… Was it really Gyokuen who killed them all? From the way she taunted you, I mean…”

“All I found when I went there were some trinkets. I thought I might be able to find real evidence, but it’s been over twenty years already. Current probably washed everything out. I have no proof but what your mom - no, what Gyokuen said.”

Hakuryuu touched his unscarred set of gills, gingerly, then ran a finger down them. When Judar didn’t react, he stopped moving it. “Can you not feel it?”

“I can. Your hand is warm.”

Hakuryuu pushed Judar lightly into a laying position.

“What are you going to do?” Judar asked.

“…Sorry. I just wanted to look.”

Judar smiled. He raised a leg to set it on Hakuryuu’s shoulder. He didn’t really mind. If Hakuryuu wanted to understand his fake body, it was fine. He probably knew better what the differences between him and humans were anyway.

Hakuryuu moved his hand across Judar’s bared calf. “I can feel the edges of your scales.”

“Yeah. They’re not very secret once you take a good look.”

“I never noticed them.”

“Because everyone here wears twenty layers of clothes. If I were human, I’d drop nineteen.”

Hakuryuu undid the last layer at Judar’s waist. His expression was enough.

“Let me guess… ‘like a woman?’”

“No. There’s just nothing. Like a doll, perhaps.”

“One of the old guys in my colony has a spell to change that, and make it so we can reproduce with humans. But we don't have the same insides at all. Changing all that really fucks up your body's magoi flow.”

“…It’s a common spell?”

Judar laughed. “Yeah. We wanna know what the big deal about sex is too.”

Hakuryuu touched him lightly. Even when he rubbed at the skin he didn’t get the reaction he seemed to expect. “Can you even feel my hand?”

“Yeah. But it feels colder there, since I've had clothes on the whole time.”

“It’s a sensitive place for humans.”

“I gathered.” Judar sat up and scooted closer. “I want to see you now too. I've never seen a human’s full body.”

“M, mine might not be the best example…”

“I don't wanna see some stranger’s body. I want yours.”

Hakuryuu allowed Judar to remove his clothes. The scar on his face and neck extended farther than Judar had imagined, continuing past the hem of his pants. His chest was different and looked strange without gills. Judar touched, feeling the difference in texture once more. It had been awhile since he touched Hakuryuu intimately - their recent kisses were nothing but innocent for how tired Judar always was after fixing their army to obey. He kissed the dip of Hakuryuu’s neck as he felt the strange smoothness of the scars on his back.

“Why do you kiss me so much when you can’t feel anything?”

It felt funny when Hakuryuu spoke while Judar was kissing his neck. His voice vibrated and sounded a little different because of the angle. “I can feel it,” he said. “I keep telling you that.”

“But you don’t feel pleasure.”

“I want to.” Judar moved to sit on Hakuryuu’s lap.

He was surprised when Hakuryuu’s arms tightened around his bare waist, pulling him as close as they’d get. Hakuryuu pushed their lips together strongly.

Hakuryuu never really initiated, and especially never initiated so strongly before. It was all Judar could do to react with a surprised gasp.

Hakuryuu felt around in his mouth with his tongue. Judar couldn’t tell if it was for sexual gratification or if he was trying to decide if there was any real difference inside his mouth. Whichever it was, it felt odd. His breath was hot and it didn’t take long for spit to run down Judar’s chin.

“Is that what you wanted?” Hakuryuu asked. His face was still close enough for his breath to feel hot on Judar’s already flushed face.

Judar licked spit from his lips. It might have been his own, or it might have been Hakuryuu’s. There was no way to know. “I’ll take what I can get.”

“…What more do you want?”

Judar dipped a finger below Hakuryuu’s waistband, smiling when Hakuryuu tensed up. “I want to see the rest of you. It’s useless to try to get me to feel pleasure, but for you it should be easy.”

“You want to get me off?”

“Is that what it's called? Then yeah, I do.”

Hakuryuu didn’t stop him from removing his remaining clothes. It felt strange taking them off someone else. But it was worth seeing Hakuryuu’s awkward expression as he watched Judar do it. Burns easily covered a fourth of Hakuryuu's body, a nearly consistent path down his left side.

“You look just like drawings in those volumes on human anatomy, except for the scars.”

“Of course I do. I'm human.”

“I want to touch you.”

“…You already said that.”

“How do I do it?”

Hakuryuu already had to show him how to kiss right, so it was really no surprise when Hakuryuu guided Judar’s hand with his own rather than letting him experiment on his own. Of course humans could just use their hands. He felt stupid for not thinking of it.

Almost immediately, Judar was rewarded with a soft gasp. It was charming in a very human way that Hakuryuu held his breath as a response to pleasure. The two things didn’t make sense together at all in Judar’s mind, making it fun.

“…It’s changing size?”

“You really don't need to comment. Just be quiet.”

Judar laughed.

Actually, he was surprised at how long it took. Breeding was very fast for sirens, though he’d never done it. He had been touching Hakuryuu for a few minutes already, and although it was clearly having a strange effect on him, it was not the effect Judar expected.

Once he was satisfied that Judar wouldn’t suddenly do anything wrong, Hakuryuu stopped guiding his hand and let Judar set his own rhythm. As Judar understood, this was generally done inside of another human rather than onto a hand. But it seemed to be enjoyable for him nonetheless. Hakuryuu closed his eyes and went from trying to hold his breath to breathing roughy.

Even though he was the same Hakuryuu as always, seeing him make such an expression was foreign. Even more so when he did something like lick his lips, or push his hips towards Judar for more stimulation and moaned softly.

Watching Hakuryuu act so uncharacteristically shameless was appealing in its own way, making him warm with fondness.

Soon after Hakuryuu moaned he finished in a line across Judar’s chest. He removed Judar’s hand, not meeting his eyes, and closed his legs in what seemed to be embarrassment.

Judar touched the white fluid curiously.

“Just wipe it off,” Hakuryuu said.

“I didn't think it would have a smell.”

“I already told you that you didn’t need to comment. Go to sleep.”

Judar rolled his eyes. “You commented on my body.”

He cleaned it off with a cloth Hakuryuu kept at his bedside and blew out the oil lamp. He didn’t bother putting his clothes back on before climbing in bed beside Hakuryuu.

After a few minutes neither of them seemed any closer to sleep. Hakuryuu eventually turned over and looked at him.

“Why don’t you use the other spell?” Hakuryuu asked. “It seems like the kind of thing you’d be interested in.”

“I am, but it takes a lot of magoi. Or it’d take a lot if I tried doing it how I’m doing the rest. There’s probably an easier way. I just don’t know it yet.”

“Getting better at life magic may prove useful.”

“Ah, shut up. You can’t use _any_ magic.”

He couldn’t tell in the dark, but he was pretty sure Hakuryuu made a face at that. “We don’t know if it’s impossible yet…”

Judar snickered. “Not gonna give up on that, are you?”

They argued and made fun of each other without any malice until they grew too tired to form coherent sentences. It didn’t really feel like they’d just consummated their partnership. There was probably nothing to consummate about their relationship and even if there was, it didn’t feel much like they’d brought things to the next level.

Hakuryuu fell asleep first. Somewhere between waking and dreaming, he was a little cuddly. He rested his head on Judar’s chest like it was more comfortable than the palace’s finest pillows, unbothered by the bony covering of his gills.

Judar tried to ignore the fluttering in his chest. It was too late to act lovestruck.


	16. Chapter 16

Hakuryuu was a little weird the morning after sleeping together.

They’d talked the same as normal that night, but after sleeping on it he was anything but normal: caught between trying to avoid Judar’s gaze and absentmindedly staring, he was even unsure of how to respond when Judar spoke to him. At first Judar thought he was just tired, but when he didn’t sleep well he just kinda moped around. This was different.

It was like he was trying to gauge Judar’s reaction but didn’t understand or like what he was getting. That meant there was some kind of human significance to sleeping together that was going over his head. Either that or Hakuryuu was a troublesome lover in the same way he was a troublesome little brother to his sister, and he was just making a big deal out of nothing.

Thinking of Hakuryuu as his lover was strange, but since they slept together, that made it true. 

Probably.

Human romance definitely wasn’t Judar’s forte. It was so different from what he’d grown up thinking romance was that thinking of it a type of love at all was strange.

If he had to guess, he’d say that Hakuryuu was nervous because it was his first experience with any kind of romance, and even if lovers were watered down spouses and spouses were watered down partners to a siren, it still meant _something._

And if something that small was enough to make Hakuryuu react like this, it was probably a good thing he was just a human.

Hakuryuu’s nerves cooled by the end of a day spent following him around chatting. Kissing made him more agreeable and relaxed, and more than that, distracting Hakuryuu from war preparations was fun.

He always realized he had something else he needed to be doing instead before it amounted to anything, but it was the principle. There wasn’t much else that could distract Hakuryuu.

Spending time together reassured him, which ended up being all Hakuryuu really needed.

Within days they fell back into a familiar routine.

Now that Hakuryuu had some faith in Judar, he had no problem keeping him in the loop as far as war plans went - since they’d killed Gyokuen together, Hakuryuu was confidant that Judar wouldn’t betray him. It was well past the time for betrayals.

“Kouen will want to minimize casualties,” Hakuryuu told him. “People on both sides will be people of Kou, after all.”

“What about you? Do you care about that?”

“…Kouen has a larger army. It’s better for us if he makes an effort to avoid killing where he can.”

In other words, Hakuryuu didn’t give a shit. Not on an individual level. After killing one person, what did letting more die matter? It was charming in a way that he could be bashful over sleeping together one week and so uncaring about what happened to others the next. Then again, Judar was no better.

“How do you think he’s gonna attack?” Judar asked.

“He’ll probably try to kill me as soon as possible, by any means possible. I will do the same to him.”

“He’s got more land right now,” Judar said. “Can’t he just hide somewhere?”

“There are methods to keep him from hiding. I don’t think he would abandon his siblings to act as a coward, either.”

Judar wondered if Hakuryuu remembered that he was living proof of Kouen’s ability to abandon a sibling. Maybe he was just unlucky. “Are _you_ going to hide?”

“No. This is my war. Hiding would be pointless.”

His confidant answer was refreshing. Being closer to his goal didn’t make Hakuryuu any less reckless. Judar liked that recklessness. It was much better than the cowardice of Scheherazade and Yunan.

The soldiers permanently stationed at Rakushou were given the same treatment as the soldiers of the supply base. Judar didn’t mind, not really, but since it was Hakuryuu’s pet project instead of his own he wished that Hakuryuu could just do it himself.

Hakuryuu did have a point about the siren blood thing anyway. He couldn’t see the flow of magoi, but maybe he could sense it if he tried.

“Maybe it’s easier if you try seeing the flow of magoi before changing it,” Judar said. “Take these guys for example. This guy—,” Judar said, pointing to an older soldier, “—Might look fine, but if you look at his magoi there’s something wrong with his left hand. You probably can’t see it, though.” He left off the ‘because you’re a human’ part - the guards were hardly aware of their conversation, but it was always possible one would get away. It’d be a shame if the fact that he was a magician got out before the war, but it was better than the whole siren thing getting out.

Hakuryuu tried moving the man’s hand around. He groaned, but Judar’s clairvoyance magic was keeping him in a state unfit to react much more to the stimulus. A little more twisting and it cracked loudly. “You’re right,” Hakuryuu said in amazement. “It was dislocated. Must have happened when you put the plant in.”

Judar beamed. “The flow gets all messed up when there’s an injury, so maybe you can work on seeing if you can sense the difference. We could make these guys submit twice as fast if we split the work.”

He looked around the room to see if there were even any other injuries and was pleased to see that several soldiers had perfect examples of poor magoi flow. It wasn’t good for their army to have so many injuries, but that was what happened when most of the soldiers who didn’t flee to Kouen’s side were veterans from wars Hakuryuu’s father ended.

Hakuryuu tried, he really did. He looked over the un-thinking soldiers carefully, sometimes lightly touching commonly injured areas. But it was clear to Judar that he couldn’t see their magoi flow. He skipped over a few injuries by just looking with his eyes.

“Hmm… maybe close your eyes or something? You don’t really need them to feel magoi.”

“You aren’t very good at explaining this, Judar…”

“Payback for all the times you made me write sentences a hundred times in a row. That was a piss poor way to teach.”

“You never got that far. You’d always give up at around fifty, complaining that you understood already and were bored.”

“It _was_ boring! I couldn’t learn when you kept putting me to sleep anyway.”

“I didn’t put you to sleep. You are the one who chose to fall asleep. Oh,” Hakuryuu stopped his hand above a man’s injured shoulder and opened his eyes. “What…?”

Judar blinked. “Did you really just do that?”

“I’m not sure what’s wrong with it, but… it’s not healthy, is it?”

“No. I don’t know what’s wrong with it either though.”

They exchanged glances. Hakuryuu’s face broke out into a triumphant smile. Before he got the chance to rub his success in Judar’s face, Judar spoke.

“You missed the last three injuries,” he said. “But I guess you have potential to improve, if you can see the flow of it at all.”

Being able to identify a severely impaired magoi flow was still far from being able to manipulate the magoi within his own body, but it was more than Judar ever expected him to be able to do. After all, he’d never commented on Judar’s body’s atrocious flow thanks to his constant magic. So he couldn’t have _that_ much of a natural talent.

Hakuryuu practiced injury identification for several days as they waited for Kouen’s army, finding oddities in his army’s magoi flows and staying up late reading medical scrolls to try to understand how magoi and human medicine coincided.

“You’re gonna be too tired to get anything done tomorrow at this rate,” Judar told him.

“When have I ever been too tired to get work done?” Hakuryuu mumbled in response. “You can go to sleep without me.”

“Don’t wanna. What are you even reading about?”

“The Yambala tribe.”

“What the hell, I thought you were reading about sprains and shit,” Judar said. He stretched out to take Hakuryuu’s pillow in his arms, squishing all the air out of its feathery insides. “What does a tribe have to do with that?”

“One of the other scrolls mentioned them. Apparently their folk medicine involves a similar process to what you’ve been talking about. It’s very interesting…”

Hakuryuu’s voice trailed off. He was obviously too tired to be reading, but he wouldn’t listen if Judar tried to tell him that. Rolling his eyes at Hakuryuu’s stubborn desire to work fifteen hours every day, he rolled over. “Whatever,” he said. “I’m not leaving you with any pillows, alright?”

Hakuryuu didn’t argue, but he did have the mind to complain of a sore neck when he woke up. Served him right.

When he was awake enough, Hakuryuu explained what he’d been reading about. “They’re a nomadic tribe originating from the east, but it looks like they left to avoid war. According to the records the last time they were here was four years ago. I could have learned from them then if I’d known. Back then I never thought of checking medical scrolls for useful information, and everything I’ve read regards it as mere superstition.”

“So even authors can be idiots.”

“That’s often the case when it comes to nomadic groups,” Hakuryuu said. “My sister explained to me that most scrolls call the tribes useless and superstitious when they’re not. Though I believed them without questioning it when I was younger… Only the Torran tribes seemed legitimate when it came to magical ability because of their strange language and mysterious history.”

Hakuryuu was as judgemental as ever. Still, it was funny that being mysterious made the Torran sound legitimate when to Judar they’d always been frauds coasting along on rumors of magic for protection.

“Wait,” Judar said. “How do you know it’s not the same thing with these Yambala guys as it with Torran people? Humans can’t use magic.”

“But magoi isn’t magic. You said that yourself. Every person has their own magoi flow, so it may be possible for them to take advantage of it.”

Judar shrugged. “You did better than expected. So I guess they could, yeah. Maybe they’re descended from sirens as well, I don’t know. You probably have a better guess than me, being a human and all.”

Hakuryuu looked like he expected a different answer but didn’t argue. “I would like to meet them someday,” was all he said. 

Judar followed him to the throne for a few days after that to make sure he didn’t fall asleep in the middle of a sentence. He never did, and eventually Judar began to hang around for a different reason entirely.

There was something about seeing Hakuryuu in the inner palace that charmed Judar. He sat at the throne with confidence, though his coronation wouldn’t be until after Kouen’s death, and dealt with every problem that arose with ease because he’d been studying and preparing for this moment since his brothers died and he told himself the throne was his right.

If Judar were capable of feeling lust, he was sure that lust would be the image that Hakuryuu proudly acting as his emperor, the emperor of all of Kou, evoked. He told Hakuryuu and he rolled his eyes.

“I think you should review the meaning of ‘lust.’”

“Huh, really? How about sexy?”

Hakuryuu finally understood that Judar _was_ trying to compliment him as opposed to using the wrong word and turned red.

Judar laughed at Hakuryuu’s embarrassed expression. He didn’t know how to take a compliment at all, and it really showed.

“…Judar! Do something useful instead of sitting around watching!” 

It was fun. Things were fun again, like when Judar first met Hakuryuu and they spent many hours together every day. But it wasn’t the same.

It was fun, but he wasn’t particularly happy.

Every day the palace guards became less of themselves - whispers of the war and gossip changed to curses to Kouen’s name. Walking by them became a little weird.

They didn’t have enough soldiers. Guards were healthy and trained adequately, so they’d have to fight for Hakuryuu, too. 

It didn’t take long for the whole palace to submit to Hakuryuu’s ideals. Their army’s ranks swelled several times, including soldiers from the nearby supply bases and those who were stationed at the gulf coast. None came of their own free will.

“What we have,” Hakuryuu said, motioning to the troops, “Is roughly twenty percent of Kou’s fighting power. Kouen has the remaining eighty percent.”

“No problem,” Judar said, confident. “I will make up the difference and more.”

Hakuryuu smiled. “I’m counting on you.”

They set out for the Kanan plains soon after.

Judar never read up on Kou’s history like Hakuryuu told him to so long ago, but he heard from the dazed chatter of their army that it had been an important region since antiquity.

The old generals were a more reliable source of information but still spoke of it like a myth.

“I wonder if the grass still grows red,” Shuu Kokushou said with a such a grim tone that Judar believed it really would be red.

He was told to absolutely not fly despite that their whole army was obviously magical, so he was travelling the same as the humans. Hakuryuu claimed that Judar being a magician wasn’t necessarily obvious to humans just because it was obvious to him, and Judar begrudgingly agreed to not use any obvious spells before the battle started.

“Seems like the place is pretty famous,” Judar said to Hakuryuu.

“It is,” Hakuryuu agreed. “Though I’ve never been here, unlike much of the army.”

“Why not?”

“Those wars were before my time,” Hakuryuu said. “Though I was alive for some of it, I don’t remember much at all. Mostly just looking forward to when my brothers came back from battles…”

“So this is where they fought, huh?”

“Yes. But then… almost fourteen years ago now, they were killed by Gyokuen. Since Kouen was complacent in their deaths, it’s only fitting that he should die here.”

When they arrived, the plains looked just as innocent as the meadows of Musta’sim.

“We will set up camp on the eastern edge of the plains,” Hakuryuu informed the army. “Three guard shifts of five soldiers each through the night will be sufficient.”

Judar and Hakuryuu shared a tent just as they shared a room at the supply base - if anything happened during the night for any reason, Hakuryuu would be safe within Judar’s borg. He didn’t need to communicate that reasoning to Judar because it was most obvious strategy.

Unlike their room at the palace, there was no side room to change in. There were no hot baths, either - something that Judar was dreading. If he couldn’t use any magic until the fighting began, that meant he’d have to bathe in cold and smelly river water. Ugh.

“Are you nervous?” Judar asked as Hakuryuu changed clothes.

Hakuryuu stopped to consider, then shook his head. “No. There’s nothing to be nervous about.”

Judar smiled. Hakuryuu’s unwavering faith in him was new but appreciated. He didn’t mention that Hakuryuu’s sister would be on the opposing side or that it was possible Kouen had pieced together his identity as a siren as a result of Gyokuen’s death. It was possible that he had already created a flawless counter strategy to fight a magical being. Hakuryuu already knew those things, after all.

Hakuryuu lay down next to Judar, ran a hand through his hair, and kissed him. “I’m counting on you,” he said.

Judar wouldn’t let him down.

\---

“Kouha will likely lead the vanguard,” Hakuryuu told his generals. “I have heard that his soldiers are loyal on a similar level to Kouen’s. Don’t expect any hesitation from them.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

Judar stared at the scene, bored. A week had passed since coming to the plains, and Hakuryuu repeated his instructions many times to the soldiers despite the fact that Judar would be using magic to more or less control them the whole time anyway.

“We should, if possible, capture Kouha.” Hakuryuu was pacing, but not from nerves. It was just that he’d get stiff if he stood still every time he was lecturing someone on what to do. “We still don’t know if Kouen has left Balbadd or not, after all…”

“He’s just gonna stay in Balbadd?” Judar asked. “Coward.”

“…Like I said, we don’t know yet.”

“You know, I could go check. It wouldn’t take long.”

“Don’t. And don’t talk about there here.”

Judar sighed loudly in frustration. The boredom was really starting to get to him.

“Judar,” Hakuryuu said, pausing in his pacing to stare at him. “If you’re so bored you can meet with the reconnaissance to see if they’ve spotted the Western Army yet.”

He paused in drawing figures in the dirt with his staff to look at Hakuryuu, unimpressed. “You’re giving me _more_ work? Can’t you find someone else to do it?”

His rude remark caught the attention of some nearby soldiers who looked to Hakuryuu with wide eyes. Hakuryuu just smiled.

“You were so excited for this war, too. What’s wrong, can’t take sleeping in tents and not having someone run a hot bath for you daily?”

“N, no! That’s nothing! It’s just that your army’s super boring! When’s the enemy gonna get here?”

“It won’t be more than three days from now, I expect,” Hakuryuu said. “I’m sure you can manage to wait for that long.”

“It’s not that I’m having trouble,” Judar grumbled.

Either way, he didn’t continue to complain. In two days the Western Army reached the Kanan plains.

Hakuryuu wanted to repeat his edict to the Western Army’s troops, but said it would be best to wait until they were too close to regroup and plan to fight magic.

So Judar continued to wait. Both armies advanced slowly, then sprinted forward all at once to try to gain the upperhand.

At that point Hakuryuu gave the signal. Judar nodded - he was good with sound magic, and it wasn’t difficult for him to turn his staff into an amplifier for nearby sound.

Hakuryuu ordered the enemy army to bring him Kouen’s head. To Judar, it was a pointless thing to use magic for. But hearing a voice so clearly over the fighting confused them and left them unsure of what was happening. Hakuryuu’s soldiers took the opportunity to kill them without remorse or hesitation.

The only problem with that was that Hakuryuu’s soldiers seemed to get lost in the huge Western Army. It was difficult to see them from the ground, and would be hard to avoid friendly fire even with a height advantage. Thankfully, their soldiers were disposable as long as they won.

For several hours, Judar stayed by Hakuryuu’s side at the far east side of the plains. When stragglers or wannabe heroes came too close to Hakuryuu for his liking, he struck them with lightning. It wasn’t as fun as he imagined it to be.

“Can’t I just go to the other side of the plains and attack from there?” Judar complained.

“No. We don’t know how prepared they are to fight you. It’s best if you follow my orders instead of doing something stupid.”

“What would you do without me,” Judar grumbled. “How were you planning to do this if I didn’t come back, anyway? Were you gonna be content fighting a losing battle?”

“…No. I had a back-up plan.”

“Had? Or _have_ a back-up plan?”

“It isn’t a good alternative,” Hakuryuu assured him. “It’s just for the worst case scenario. In fact, if you died now, I probably wouldn’t use it…”

“Hmm. Now I’m curious.”

“Don’t worry about it too much. Look, there’s someone coming from the southwest again.”

Judar flicked his staff downwards, striking the soldier in question to his death midstep. “The weather’s making this too easy. Dry clouds are begging for lightning magic.”

“I’m sure you’ll get a challenge by the end of today,” Hakuryuu said. “There are a few hours left yet.”

“Do you think this battle will last longer than a day? Or will everyone get tired and go home at sunset?”

“Typically one side of a war retreats when they find themselves unable to win. For us, the easiest way to achieve that would be attacking their chain of command directly. So we have to wait until they break formation.”

Judar yawned and made the sky crackle with electricity just to scare the Western Army. He wasn’t sure if it worked or not - they were too far away to tell.

It was another hour until they received news of a break in the enemy formation. Hakuryuu waited for two groups to return with the same information before giving Judar his orders.

“According to reconnaissance, they’re rallying around a general to the north. Judar, please kill the general.”

Judar smiled. “I thought you were never gonna ask!” He moved his legs in a posture not unlike a sprint start, and jumped up into the sky. Gravity didn’t bring him back down. It was refreshing. Hakuryuu warned him earlier to watch out for archers, but Judar was confidant that no arrows would make it through his borg.

He was unsurprised to see that the general was Kouha. Judar was sure to get his attention before attacking. Surprise attacks weren’t really his thing. He landed, using strength magic to cause his borg to destroy the pretty field below them. Kouha whipped his head around to the impact, wide eyed, like he wanted to yell but didn’t want to distract his troops.

“Judar!?”

Judar mock-saluted him. “It’s been awhile!”

Kouha looked from Judar to the mess his landing had created. “You’re… ahh…” A panicked expression of regret flashed through his face before he steeled himself. “You’re a traitor to Kou! You’re…”

“Only the people of Kou can be traitors to it.”

Kouha gritted his teeth and motioned for his troops to attack.

It wasn’t hard to get far enough that their polearms and swords couldn’t reach him from their horses. Judar shook his head in disappointment. “Is that all you can do? I expected better from the third prince. Oh well.” Judar waved his staff above his head to gather electricity from the cloudy sky.

In addition to the static gathering, the rukh of hundreds of thousands of people flew to him, uncaring that he was about to return them to the great flow in their desire to be of help.

Fighting in a war didn’t take up nearly as much magoi as he’d expected. It was self-sustaining - he used magic, it killed humans. Their rukh flew to him. He used it to kill more humans.

Easy. The more people he killed, the more refreshed his body felt. Unnerving didn’t begin to describe the abnormal feeling of being filled to the brim with magoi.

“Get away from him!” Kouha yelled to his army. “He’s going to use more magic, get away!”

“Too late.”

A flick of his staff was all it took. The same technique he used in Musta’sim proved once again to be unstoppable. Lightning struck the middle of Kouha’s army. The smell of burnt flesh quickly became overwhelming, and Judar moved to the sky once again to escape the scent and smoke see if Kouha survived. Unfortunately, it was impossible to tell who was who in the charred mess.

Pity the plains were so dry. It would’ve been fun to turn the Western Army into ice sculptures. Less smell, too.

He recalled that Hakuryuu’s scars were from a fire that caused the death of his brothers and focused the little moisture in the air on containing the fiery aftermath of his lightning. He couldn’t sleep when Hakuryuu had nightmares. He was too loud.

It only took a few minutes to make sure it didn’t spread, anyway. Judar looked around the warring scene when he was finished. It was easy to get lost watching the chaos - soldiers tripped over bodies and lopped each other’s heads off without a moment of hesitation, their rukh clashing with a sound just the same as their swords did.

Judar could kill them all, if he wanted. All the rukh that entered his palm to cast that spell would then belong to him until his death, a swirling mess of humans that died because of royal politics they would never fully understand. Several arrows flew his way. His hand itched to do it.

But that would be pointless in the end. Hakuryuu would be emperor, and an emperor needed an army. Once the Kou Empire was reunified under him, his army would be the combined strength of the two warring sides.

Judar suddenly remembered that somewhere in that mass of humans and rukh was Hakuryuu. He turned his back to the arrows that were firing at his borg with an increasing intensity.

On the south side, a group had passed through the main fight to head for Hakuryuu. That was right, just as they would win if Kouen’s head fell to the ground, the Western Army would win if they murdered Hakuryuu.

His breath caught in his throat when he saw black ruck at the eastern edge irritated as if fighting. Judar didn’t waste time to fly and instead used transfer magic to appear between the black rukh and the opposing white. In less than a second he was face to face with a man who clearly didn’t belong in Kou’s civil war, blond as he was.

The strange man drew back, shocked at what just happened quickly turning to fear. Judar smiled. He loved seeing that expression. It might have been the most human expression of them all - without a borg to save them, humans had to live their lives in such fear, after all.

“Judar… out of the way!” Hakuryuu gasped out from behind him. The smell of burning flesh hadn’t yet reached this side of the battlefield, but the smell of blood was inescapable.

Hakuryuu pushed in front of Judar to slash at the man in front of him with his sword. Judar’s first thought was that the distance would’ve been ideal for his polearm, and almost said so before realizing why Hakuryuu was using his sword.

The scent of blood was coming from Hakuryuu. His left arm was was completely unsalvageable. From the way Hakuryuu was gritting his teeth and attacking the blond guy he was most likely trying to get even.

Judar understood. He left that fight to Hakuryuu and focused on pushing back the approaching group of soldiers with wind magic. Once they’d fallen pathetically, he gave them the same treatment as Kouha.

_“Ill-Ramz Al-Salos!”_

Once again, the smell of burnt flesh was overwhelming. It caught in his throat, somewhere between smoky and metallic. He coughed a few times to try to expel it but it didn’t fade.

Judar looked back to Hakuryuu to find him victorious but shaking. His arm really didn’t look too good. A deep gash ran from his hand to his upper forearm, stopping just inches before his elbow. There was too much blood to know for sure but Judar wouldn’t have been surprised if the injury reached his bone, or even cracked part of it. With everyone in the area already taken care of, Judar hurried to his side.

“Hakuryuu, are you alright?”

“Hah… haha… I killed him…”

Judar hadn’t expected the shaking to be from laughter. He blinked his shock away.

It was a good thing if Hakuryuu could find enjoyment in killing. It would make things easier.

Not dying of blood loss would also make things easier.

“You probably need to get that looked at,” he said, motioning to Hakuryuu’s arm.

“Yes, they’re on their… ughh…” Hakuryuu dropped his sword and held his right hand to his mouth.

It must have been the smell of burnt flesh on Judar’s clothes. He watched as Hakuryuu threw up, not daring to leave and allow him to become injured again when he clearly wasn’t in a state to pick more fights. His retching changed to coughing and as pathetic as the sound was, Hakuryuu didn’t fall over from the pain and blood loss and his difficulty breathing. Instead he steadied his legs and stared ahead into the chaos.

Soon a soldier came with a nurse in tow - they asked Hakuryuu to come to a medical tent but he staunchly refused, even in his current state, claiming that he had to remain where he could see what was happening. They best they could do was get him to sit down and stay still.

The nurse spoke in hushed but urgent words, and Hakuryuu nodded once or twice in agreement before holding out the wounded arm to her.

An officer approached. Judging by the plant protruding rather obviously from his head, he was no enemy. He crouched with his hands politely held in front of his face. “Your majesty. It appears that the Western Army is retreating for today.”

“Let them go,” Hakuryuu said through coughs. “They will need a new general to command the vanguard… We may be able to use them as a bargaining chip.”

It was impressive how coherent Hakuryuu was. “Doesn’t it hurt?” Judar asked. 

“It could be worse,” Hakuryuu said simply. Judar looked at the injury once again. The nurse had tied a rope just below Hakuryuu’s elbow and was twisting the rope with a stick. Judar didn’t know what the purpose of it was.

“It looks pretty bad to me.”

“Only because… you’ve never been injured like this before…”

“Your Majesty, please stay still.” The nurse washed Hakuryuu’s arm and picked up another tool from her kit: a saw. She stationed it just below the rope and began to cut through the remaining muscle.

“Hey!” Judar said. “What’re you trying to pull?”

“Shut up, Judar,” Hakuryuu said. “It needs to be done.” He let out a strangled cry when it reached his bone.

Judar watched, stuck in place both by Hakuryuu’s command and fascination. He had no idea what they were doing. It looked like the bleeding was starting to slow already, so what was the point in getting out a saw of all things? His eyes flickered to Hakuryuu’s face. Though his eyes were shut tight and his teeth were grinding together in pain, he didn’t tell her to stop.

If Hakuryuu was okay with it, he was too.

But it was definitely the strangest thing he’d seen a human do.

Hakuryuu’s mutilated arm fell to the ground with a soft thump. Hakuryuu didn’t say anything. He seemed to have passed out from the pain.

Judar stepped closer, drawn to the arm by curiosity and disgust. The surrounding soldiers didn’t react to his presence. After all, their ‘fear’ had been taken from them. There was no other way to react to him now that they’d seen his destructive power, so they didn’t react at all.

He picked up the arm. It was still warmer than the autumn air, but with both Hakuryuu’s magoi and its blood flow cut off, it was impossible for it to be reattached. He looked back up from the arm to find that several people - medical staff, no doubt - were staring.

So _that_ was strange, huh? Picking up an arm was strange, and cutting one off was normal. He dropped the lifeless arm carelessly. It no longer had a purpose and he suddenly didn’t want to touch it for another second.

“When will he wake up?” Judar asked.

The nurse was using strings to do something to the bloodied insides of what remained of Hakuryuu’s arm and didn’t stop or slow at Judar’s question. She worked with every bit of urgency that Judar expected to see in the army, yet lacked something that had drawn Judar to the idea of war in the first place. She was too used to her surroundings.

“Depends. Some wake up in hours, others never.” she said simply. “I of course hope His Majesty makes a full recovery.”

Judar frowned at her. That last part seemed more like an afterthought than anything. He was starting to see why Hakuryuu didn’t like to have people around who weren’t conditioned from Judar’s magic and those plants.

He looked back to Hakuryuu, focusing on seeing his magoi flow. Apart from his arm he seemed healthy enough. Judar allowed himself to relax. Hakuryuu was durable. He’d probably be fine.

Since Kouen’s army was retreating, Hakuryuu’s troops returned in huge numbers to the camp. Even with their return it was noticeably less crowded than it had been the day before.

Judar walked around the camp aimlessly, taking in the state of the army. Wounded soldiers were directed to the medical tents and healthy soldiers were taken in the opposite direction for dinner.

That was right, he almost forgot about eating.

Millet porridge and pork wasn’t exactly a meal fit for a king, but it did its job. Grains were only slightly less disgusting when cooked in porridge, but even Judar could see that complaining would get him, at most, some more pork. It wasn’t intended to be a long campaign, so the quality of rations was less important that the quantity.

After that he took as much of a bath as was possible. With no assurance that he wouldn’t be walked in on, he had to bathe clothed. It was unpleasant and he didn’t feel any better even after drying his clothes to dampness. They still smelled like burnt flesh, after all.

When Judar returned to where Hakuryuu had been operated on, he was already gone. Rakushou’s right and left generals were giving orders in his place.

Judar didn’t have much interest in bossing them around, even if he knew they’d listen and heed his orders without hesitation - even if he wasn’t officially a general, everyone knew where he ranked - and instead took the opportunity to ask about Hakuryuu.

“My lord woke and I accompanied him to his tent,” Ri Seiryuu told him. When Judar turned on his heel towards their tent, he elaborated. “His Majesty said not to allow anyone to disturb him.”

“That doesn’t include me,” Judar said and Seiryuu didn’t argue. He left for their shared tent without another word to the generals.

Judar didn’t bother chatting with the tent’s guards. “Hakuryuu,” he called from the entrance. “You awake?”

A noncommittal noise came from inside. Judar almost laughed. Of course he wouldn’t sleep after getting his arm sawed off. That would be too sensible.

Judar entered and when the tent’s flap closed behind him it was dark enough that he would’ve believed Hakuryuu was trying to sleep if he weren’t sitting upright.

“Here I thought I told them to not let anyone in,” Hakuryuu said groggily. He sounded a little off and Judar wondered if he was given something for the pain while he was unconscious or if he was just fatigued from blood loss.

“Apparently you said not to let anyone disturb you, which I don’t do.”

“You disturb me the most.”

Judar flashed him a toothy smile that was probably lost in the darkness. By now it was more of a joke than anything. “You’re pretty disturbing yourself, you know. Running up to try and kill that guy even with your arm hardly hanging on and all. Even more impressive, you actually got him.”

“An arm for his life is a fair trade.”

“Did you know him?”

“…Yes. He was someone from my time in Sindria who lacked the determination to do what’s necessary.”

“Oh. Why was he here?”

“He was a prince of Balbadd who was away during the rebellions out of cowardice and came back only to wag his tail at Kouen. Apparently the king did rebel and die after all, to top it off… And to think that he was angry with me for doing what was natural.”

Sometimes Judar couldn’t tell if Hakuryuu understood that his logic was flawed or not. He was indignant that Balbadd’s prince thought of him as wrong, despite the fact that he thought of himself as wrong on some level. Either way, Judar had no interest in Balbadd’s princes or politics and changed the subject.

“Gonna get in a fight tomorrow too?” Judar asked. “Or have you decided that Kouen’s strategy of waiting in the capital is smarter?”

“Mm… do you remember what Koumei looks like?”

“He’s the one with all the pimples, right?”

“I doubt you’ll be able to see pimples from above,” Hakuryuu said. “But yes, that’s him.”

“Want me to kill him?”

“No… he’s valuable for bargaining. I expect he’ll be commanding from their camp tomorrow. What happened to Kouha?”

“I dunno. He might’ve escaped but it’s more likely he’s one of the charred bodies out there. Didn’t have time to find out.”

“You spent a lot of time with Kouha, didn’t you?”

“I guess so,” Judar said, then thought better of it. “I mean, he kept bothering me to spend time with him and all. And it wasn’t like I had anything else to do.” He suddenly caught the stubborn smell of burnt flesh on his clothes and fumbled around in the dark for something else to wear. “I never really liked him, if that’s what you’re asking. Just used him to kill some time.”

Hakuryuu didn’t respond. Judar briefly wondered if he didn’t like his answer.

“What’re you gonna do now?” Judar asked. “You haven’t eaten, right?”

“…I’m not hungry,” Hakuryuu said. “I think I’m going to try to get some more sleep. Are you staying?”

Judar stretched his legs out and got comfortable. He wasn’t one to argue with the prospect of a nap, especially not after using so much magic. When Hakuryuu lay down beside him, Judar moved closer and lay his head against Hakuryuu’s back, draping an arm over him.

Hakuryuu gasped in pain and adjusted the stump of his left arm. This time Judar was the uncomfortable one. He pulled one of his legs over Hakuryuu’s and curled a bit closer to him. Much better. In the cold and uncomfortable makeshift bed, closeness was as sensible as it was calming.

Judar was pretty sure that neither of them fell asleep but neither spoke for the several hours they lay together. He was distracted by thoughts, and Hakuryuu must have had lots to think about, too.

He thought of Kouha. He was, unlike Judar and Hakuryuu, a good person. He fought for a just world that Hakuryuu was unable to live in. No matter how he looked at it, killing Kouha was ‘bad.’ Maybe Hakuryuu felt like that about the prince of Balbadd he’d just killed, too.

He should have felt worse about that than he did.

Eventually he pushed those feelings to the back of his mind and focused on the warmth of Hakuryuu’s back until he finally was able to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> remember when all i wrote was fluff


	17. Chapter 17

Judar woke to a frustrated sigh. It didn’t take long to figure out the cause - Hakuryuu was more frustrated than he’d seen him in months, especially for it being first thing in the morning. Hakuryuu was a morning person: he enjoyed the time he spent alone in the mornings and what most put him in a bad mood was bad interactions with others. His mood tended to not improve after noon unless something really good happened to him.

In short, while it wasn't all that weird for Hakuryuu to be stressed in the first place, it was strange to see him so stressed in the morning. He’d already pushed the flap of the tent out of the way to let enough light in to get ready, and it was hard to tell if it was the cold morning air that woke Judar or if it was Hakuryuu’s pacing.

Compared to Hakuryuu, Judar was _not_ a morning person. Waking up was often the most irritating part of the day. He squinted at Hakuryuu in the morning half-light to see what he was doing.

It seemed like Hakuryuu was getting dressed just like normal. But he was doing it out of order. Normally he brushed and tied his hair up before he did anything else but it still lay half combed across his shoulders even though he’d already put on his clothes. Sort of. Those didn’t look quite right either.

Judar’s gaze slid downwards to the stump of Hakuryuu’s arm. It finally clicked.

“Hakuryuu, c’mere.”

Hakuryuu jumped and straightened his posture in hopes of appearing the same as any day. “Oh… I didn’t realize you were awake.”

“Cold woke me up,” Judar said. He patted the spot next to himself.

“I’m not going back to sleep,” Hakuryuu said.

“It’s not that. Let me do your hair.”

Hakuryuu grimaced. “I can get it.”

“I don’t think I could tie my hair up with one hand even if I used magic,” Judar said. “It’ll take like five seconds for me to do it if you cooperate. Then I can go back to sleep.”

Hakuryuu gave in. He handed the string to Judar and sat stiffly as he waited for Judar to tie it up.

Judar ran his fingers through Hakuryuu’s hair. It felt a little different from his own and tended to fall straight instead of wavy. He held his hair in one hand and tied the string with his other hand until it looked sort of like how Hakuryuu normally wore it.

When he stopped moving his hands in uncertainty, Hakuryuu felt it with his. “It’s lopsided.”

“It was my first time!”

“Do it again.”

Judar sighed but obliged. tying it tighter and twisting it to suit his complaints. Three tries later, Hakuryuu was finally satisfied.

If they weren’t in the middle of the war where having his hair out of his face was important, Judar would’ve given up and told him to just wear it down. His begrudging thanks would have been cute if it weren’t so grumpy.

Hakuryuu didn’t say anything about his arm as he continued his morning rituals, but Judar was familiar with what he did and how long it took from long mornings watching him half asleep. Hakuryuu spent much longer on simple tasks because of it. It didn’t take a genius to notice how much longer it took for him to figure out how to do things without his arm. If just getting ready was so frustrating for him, the rest of the day would be no better. Especially with a whole army to try to suck up to him with their pretend sympathy. Judar wasn’t the one who had to deal with it, and even he felt exhausted thinking about it.

Judar tried to get comfortable again, but the cold air that entered the tent with the morning sun sent a shiver down his spine. He gave up within minutes.

“I should’ve brought a bed here,” Judar mumbled. “And some more blankets, too.”

“It won’t be that bad once you get moving,” Hakuryuu said. “It’s not like it’s the dead of winter.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. But would it kill them to make tents more comfortable?”

Hakuryuu shrugged. “Comfy beds are hardly important on the battlefield. You never complain when you’re trying to sleep, either. Only when you’re waking up. You just don’t want to get out of bed.”

Judar laughed. He was probably right.

Even with Hakuryuu’s head start, they finished getting ready at about the same time. Hakuryuu’s irritation had faded into something much more manageable, judging by his rukh, and when Judar moved to leave he stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

“What?” 

“…Sorry for snapping at you. And thank you for doing my hair.”

Judar blinked, unsure how to react. Hearing Hakuryuu apologize was still a foreign feeling. Being sincerely apologized to was even stranger. He followed Hakuryuu out towards breakfast. Since Hakuryuu always got up earlier and had been spending time going over orders late daily, they hadn’t eaten together since coming to the plains to fight.

“Do you have to eat the millet and pork shit too?” Judar asked. “Or do you get special treatment?”

“I don’t want special treatment. It’s just food.”

“Someone else prepares it. Are you really okay with that?”

“I’ve been eating it since we left the capital. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Hey, you really don’t remember! When you were all feverish after we killed Gyokuen, you made me bring you food from the city ‘cause you didn’t trust the palace not to poison you.”

Hakuryuu looked away in embarrassment. “Is… is that so…”

The canteen staff offered to get Hakuryuu a carpet to sit on so he didn’t have to get his clothes dirty while he ate. Hakuryuu declined before Judar could accept.

“What’s that for?” Judar complained. “The ground’s so uncomfortable. Next time they should get chairs and tables, too. Not just beds.”

“I have too much to do to sit around eating leisurely,” Hakuryuu said.

“But I don’t.”

“Yes, you do. We don’t know when the Western Army will attack again now that they’re here, so you should stay by my side.”

Time spent with Hakuryuu was usually better than time spent alone and he readily agreed.

Hakuryuu looked like he wanted to get right back into fighting, but the left and right generals approached before he could rally the troops.

“Your Majesty. The doctors would like to meet with you.”

Hakuryuu frowned.

“What, they want the other arm now?” Judar asked.

“It is of the greatest importance that His Majesty stays in good health and has his wounds reevaluated.”

Hakuryuu bit back a sigh. “I understand.”

Instead of telling the doctors to re-bandage him carefully, Hakuryuu said to do it as quick as possible.

“Any pain?”

“No,” Hakuryuu said. Whether that was true or not - and Judar would bet it wasn’t - he had a war to fight. He didn’t have time for pain.

“Discomfort?”

“No.”

The more questions the doctor asked, the more fidgety Hakuryuu got. “Please just change the dressing,” Hakuryuu said after a few minutes.

“I beg your pardon, Your Majesty, but without proper care the rest of the arm would be in danger. Please allow me to treat it to the full extent of my abilities.

The doctor waved a hand in front of the stump where his arm used to be and Hakuryuu shivered. When the doctor removed his bandages to change them, he winced.

No pain or discomfort, huh?

“Hey, Hakuryuu. I can tell those old guys what to do.”

“It’s fine,” Hakuryuu said through gritted teeth. “They already have orders.”

Half an hour total to make sure the rest of his arm didn’t fall off again wasn’t a bad trade, but that didn’t keep Hakuryuu from walking away briskly as soon as possible.

“Not a fan of doctors, huh?”

“It’s not that. This war is my only chance. I can’t miss out on it just because of a small injury like this.”

“Guess your arm wouldn’t matter much if you lost and only needed it to make it to your execution.”

“Exactly.”

Hakuryuu had the soldiers return to formation and head closer to the center of the plains as to not be caught off guard.

“After yesterday’s encirclement strategy not working the way they envisioned, their tactics will almost certainly change. We have to be prepared for a variety of circumstances.”

“Didn’t you say yesterday that we should try and use Koumei?” Judar asked. “What did you mean by that?”

“Once Koumei puts himself in danger we can offer a deal to Kouen. I am willing to trade Koumei’s life for Kouen’s.”

“Couldn’t you just kill Koumei afterwards?”

“I could, but I have no reason to. Kouen is the one who stole this country. Not Koumei.”

“But Koumei helped.”

Hakuryuu blinked, surprised that Judar was arguing his point. “Well… yes, but there’s no point in going back on my word once I’ve won.”

“Why not?”

Hakuryuu frowned. “It’s rare for you to argue with me about these things. Normally you say I should do whatever I want.”

“…Yeah, you’re right. I just felt like arguing. It doesn’t really matter what you do with Koumei.”

Hakuryuu looked doubtful but let him drop it.

Whether they lived or died didn’t mean anything to him, but it meant something to Hakuryuu. That’d been apparent since his mother died.

If there was meaning in letting Koumei live while his brothers died, it was one that Judar didn’t really get. But that made it all the more interesting. Any misguided pity for a man whose brothers were all killed would just make him suffer longer, after all.

Even Koumei might get a little interesting after a few years of that.

Though the air was no colder than the day before, the wind was much stronger. It sent a chill through their ranks and Judar wondered if it’d be okay to let the plants die in their heads as the year moved deeper into autumn, if the damage had already been done or if he’d have to find something else to stick in them. Hakuryuu was the one who understood how it worked, after all. Judar just did the dirty work.

By midmorning the Western Army advanced. Since their plan was to take a defensive stance and target the Western Army’s chain of command, with their enhanced foot soldiers acting as nothing more than decoys, they’d face lots of casualties. It was important that they made progress in other ways - the Western Army likely had the resources to do much more damage than they did the day before, and were only holding back because they too were people of Kou.

If they threw that naivety away, it might cause problems for Hakuryuu.

According to the soldiers, the nearby canyon was used to fight Gai many times in the past thanks to its strategic potential as a choke point. Due to the nature of Judar’s magic, Hakuryuu had opted to instead fight in the open plains. So if Koumei could get them back into the canyon, it’d be difficult for Judar to fight. But that was assuming he had the humanity to not fire when the Eastern Army would take equal damage.

If they moved to the canyon and Judar fought regardless, it would be a situation where hundreds of thousands of people would die instead of just the Western generals. As long as Koumei wanted to avoid that outcome, there was a limit to how far they’d push into the Eastern forces.

Judging by the Western Army’s reserved fighting style, Koumei had already weighed his life’s value against the lives of all the soldiers under his and Hakuryuu’s control and come to an answer: that the soldiers’ lives were more valuable. Hakuryuu’s answer was the opposite: to him, his single hollow life was worth more than the soldiers that’d die from his selfishness and all of their families that would grieve as a result.

Hakuryuu explained his logic, saying it was for the best that Koumei decided how he did. Watching the two armies ram together and meld into one loud and bloody mess, Judar thought otherwise.

He thought it’d be more fun if they continued to fight. What was the point in ending it so soon, with as few deaths as possible? Surely Hakuryuu wanted revenge for his arm. And there was no way just this was enough to satisfy the anger he’d carried since childhood.

There was no point in ignoring the call of the warring rukh. He was the only magician around, and it’d be a shame to let it all go to waste. Judar amplified the wind until it was blowing hard enough to upset the horses. It was funny for a few minutes until everyone got used to it and it became boring.

It wasn’t any added effort to turn the strong winds into a tornado. He made it sweep around the armies, just far enough to not suck anyone in. It accumulated enough sand and dust to cover the field in sandstorm-like conditions. Judar wondered if it would be difficult to fight in. Hakuryuu would probably yell at him later, but it wasn’t like he was actively upsetting their war effort by entertaining himself.

His tornado would last as long as he wanted it to, uninterrupted. There was nothing that Kouen’s army could do it stop it even though it was so capable of killing them all. It was amazing that they kept fighting despite it, doing their best to ignore the hazard. They must have seen victory in the quickly diminishing number of Hakuryuu’s soldiers. Really, at this rate they’d lose for real.

Hakuryuu reappeared beside him. Judar hadn’t even noticed him leave. He didn’t scold Judar, but didn’t look impressed either. 

“Hey,” Judar greeted him. “I got bored.”

“I guess there are worse things you could do from boredom,” Hakuryuu mumbled.

“Why don’t you just have me to kill them all? I could send this tornado right into their camp. Then they’d have no food and Kouen would have to surrender.”

“Not necessarily,” Hakuryuu said. “They likely have a constant supply line going to Balbadd and the other western regions.”

“I could destroy those, too.”

“That may motivate them into an unpredictable anger. It’s best if we continue as we have been.”

Judar sighed. “This is so annoying. There’s so much rukh here, all agitated and ready to fight. And it’s a war! Why do I have to ignore it? It’s not like our army can win without me, anyway.”

“The plan was never to not take advantage of your magic,” Hakuryuu said. “It’s just about timing. You’re still looking for Koumei like I told you to, aren’t you?”

“Yeah. But I don’t think he’s coming. He’s the same kind of coward as his brother.”

Hakuryuu didn’t respond for a moment. He watched a tornado Judar formed loop around the armies in a large arc, then uncurl into nothing when he got tired of motioning for it to skirt around the enemy. 

“Set up the sound magic you used before,” Hakuryuu said. “If Kouen and his brother intend on hiding, then we’ll have to switch to a strategy suitable for fighting cowards.”

“What’re you gonna do?”

“Just do it.”

Judar shrugged and did as he told.

Hakuryuu inhaled sharply, and spoke to the opposing forces. “This is a message for all the soldiers of the rebel army! I am Ren Hakuryuu, the legitimate emperor of the Kou Empire!”

Judar listened with his hands over his ears to dull the loudness as Hakuryuu introduced himself once again to let the western army know that he hadn’t retreated to safety. He repeated that following Kouen was a crime against their country and condemned the soldiers for their treason once again.

“With the flick of a wrist, you all would be annihilated.” Hakuryuu said. He motioned to Judar who flared up the tornado to nearly double its size, amplifying the cloud’s static for good measure. Using so many types of magic at once was enough to make him sweaty from the effort, but Judar didn’t mind. He was just glad to be doing something.

He smiled as the combined mass of soldiers ran out of the tornado’s way.

“It is only out of compassion that you are alive now. We would like to extend that compassion to the General Commander of your army… If the false emperor Ren Kouen pledges his surrender, we will not kill any more of the traitors. Today is your only day to decide. After sunset, we will show no hesitation.”

Judar stopped projecting Hakuryuu’s voice. “Want me to take this down for now, then?”

“Yes. Allow them to decide in peace, but don’t let your guard down. It’s very likely that they will try to break through the army in an effort to defeat me again.”

“Just stay by me,” Judar said. “They have nothing that can break through my borg.”

“Wouldn’t that fall under ‘cowardly’ to you?”

Judar laughed. “Nothing about you is cowardly. Not even losing an arm could get you to retreat. Meanwhile, Kouen could be as far as Balbadd. He puts more value on his life than what it’s worth.”

“I can’t tell if you’re insulting him or calling me stupid.”

“I was complimenting you!”

As Hakuryuu predicted, the Western Army broke through their defensive line once again. The difference in numbers was too large for them to not. Judar debated how to kill them before deciding on showing off the tornado’s power once again. Might as well make good on the threat. The soldiers rose to the sky, twisting around painfully, and Judar got a good look at them. He didn’t see anyone who looked like Koumei in the mass of people. He hadn’t been expecting anything, and for good reason, from the looks of it.

When he let them fall to the ground, none moved again past some final twitches.

“They’ve gotta know we’re serious now,” Judar commented as the sun lowered. “Maybe they really do prefer suicide to the humiliation of being defeated.”

“I don’t think so,” Hakuryuu said. “Chances are they’re just considering their diplomatic options.”

“Are you _giving_ them options?”

“No. I will take nothing less than Kouen’s full surrender, no matter what else they offer.”

It was a waiting game until sundown, and if they didn’t agree by then, he’d set their camp on fire to start with. That ought to do it. If it didn’t, then… ha, who was he kidding? It’d do it. Humans were strongest when filled with fear, but even that wasn’t enough to save them from getting on a siren’s bad side.

An envoy came before the sun closed in on the horizon.

“We are here to report the decision of General Commander Kouen. We agree to a cessation of hostilities on the ground of Lord Kouen’s surrender.”

“ _Lord_ Kouen?” Judar asked with a mean smile. “He’s nothing but a prisoner now. Why are you calling him your lord?”

“…You are of course correct.”

“What assurance do I have that you will not continue to fight as our backs are turned?” Hakuryuu asked.

“We will surrender our weapons at your orders.”

Hakuryuu had their weapons taken immediately. He ordered his soldiers to do the work, and followed the envoy back to the Western Army’s camp. It was several miles away - several long and body strewn miles, where the grass really did grow red. It was an easy excuse to take the rukh from the fallen that hesitated before joining the flow. Much of what was left had specks of black. Rare as it was, on the battlefield it was at least easier to find than a bead on the shore.

Koumei met them at the entrance. He looked from Hakuryuu to Judar, unsurprised at them coming as a pair. But he didn’t comment. He didn’t comment on Hakuryuu’s missing arm, either. He acted only as a diplomat, not as a brother.

“What’s up with the sour face, Koumei?” Judar gloated. “Angry ‘cause you lost?”

“…No. I am thankful that you’ve decided to spare the lives of our people.”

Judar frowned. It wasn’t fun to mess with people when all they did was get all tight-lipped and polite.

“Is Kouen in Balbadd?” Hakuryuu asked.

“Yes. Our army will accompany you there as guides, if you wish.”

Hakuryuu nodded curtly. “Have you sent word to the Tenzan mountains of your surrender in preparation?”

“We planned on sending for them in the morning. However, if you wish for them to leave at once…”

“Have them leave now.”

Koumei raised his fan to hide his expression. “Of course.”

Judar busied himself by looking around the camp a bit while they spoke. No one stopped him despite the fact that he was clearly suspicious.

The tents surrounding the camp’s entrance were mainly medical. Judar peeked into one out of curiosity.

Kouha glared up at him from a blanket. His face was obviously covered in dried tears but he remained defiant.

“Hey, you survived. I was wondering about that.”

Kouha sniffed and looked away. Mourning his brother’s looming execution, most likely. “Why are you in here? You look fine,” Judar said. “Did I even hit you?”

“My legs…”

“What about them?”

Kouha moved the blanket to reveal a set cast on one leg. The other was covered in strange string-like scars and a heavy looking brace. He wasn’t getting up anytime soon.

“What’s up with the scars?”

“What’s up with your tone? I thought you liked scars.”

Judar laughed. “Never thought about it before. Speaking of which, I better get back to him.”

“Wait, Judar.”

“Hm?”

“Where… are you from?” Kouha asked.

Judar considered the question for a moment. Even if he said Kou wasn’t his home on the battlefield, he didn’t think Kouha was interested enough to ask what was. Not after nearly being killed by him. “You still care about that? Aren’t you a little too forgiving?” Judar asked. “I meant to kill you, you know.”

“I don’t have to forgive you to want to know where you’re from,” Kouha said. “I fought in this war for my family. But your family isn’t here, right? Then why are you?”

“Is family the only thing you can think of to fight for?” Judar asked. “You’re as simple as always.”

“Family is what this war is about.”

Judar frowned. Kouen had foreigners fighting for him, too. Kouha hardly had a moral high ground to lecture him from.

“En and Mei let me be their little brother,” Kouha said. “I didn’t have to be someone else anymore because I was with them. I… if they die…” Kouha paused to sniffle and clear his throat. “If they die, I’ll understand what Hakuryuu went through. That’s what he wants, isn’t it?”

“Something like that.” 

Kouha sighed. “I liked you, you know? I really did. You always did whatever you wanted without worrying about the consequences. So you must be doing that now, too. But more than that, I can accept that we lost to you if Hakuryuu gave you what my brothers gave me. With a reason to fight, anyone can do something amazing.” 

“That’s not it.”

“Huh?”

“That doesn’t really matter,” Judar said. He smiled. “What about you? Who _thanks_ someone for bringing them to a place like this?”

“I… I believe in my brothers. If we’d won, we’d unify the world. And that would be worth worth the sacrifices.”

“You know, I do get it,” Judar said. “I could have fought for a noble cause. You’ve told me that enough times already. But I just can’t bring myself to care…”

Kouha didn’t respond or meet Judar’s eyes.

“You said this war was about family, right? Then look forward to Kouen’s execution.”

He left.

Kouha always did get on his nerves.

The cold dusk air cooled his head a little too quickly and he shivered instinctively. A war for family, huh?

What kind of a war had a _theme?_ It was nothing more than a pretext, an excuse to burn some steam.

He didn’t mean to lose his cool, especially not after winning the war. But sometimes that was a nice change of pace, too.

When Judar returned Hakuryuu was still waiting on his army to finish collecting weapons. He wasn’t the type to celebrate his victories early. Or much at all, really. 

He’d at least done well enough to have an excuse for them to eat something better than millet, but Judar didn’t get his hopes up.

“Where were you?”

“Just walking around. Apparently Kouha lived. Broke his legs though.”

“Hm. He’s lucky.”

“Guess so,” Judar said through a yawn. “Not sure if he’ll think so once Kouen’s dead, though. How much longer do you think it’ll take to round the rest of the weapons up?”

“A while. You can go back if you want.”

“Nah. I’ll stay here.”

Judar helped gather up the weapons since he had nothing better to do. A few Western Army soldiers recognized him and dropped what they were holding in fear before quickly apologizing and bowing. It was pretty funny the first time but got old fast.

From what he heard between hushed whispers, many soldiers were nervous about what would happen to their country with a man who had to brainwash his soldiers just to get them to follow him ruling it. Judar wondered that, too. He’d never given much thought to what kind of a ruler Hakuryuu would be.

He spent a long time studying for it, though. Judar thought he’d probably be a good ruler.

When they finished the sun had long since set. It would be annoying to have to walk all the way back so Judar opened a transfer circle for Hakuryuu and himself.

A soldier back in their own camp found Hakuryuu quickly to report that in searching for wounded soldiers on the battlefield, they’d found the bodies of his generals. Judar always thought they were too old for the battlefield anyway, but Hakuryuu was much more polite.

“Their families would be notified and receive compensation for their losses,” Hakuryuu said. “I will prepare funerals and burials for our return to Rakushou. In addition, please prepare awards for their diligence…” 

Judar zoned the rest out.

Once back at their tent, Judar stretched and smiled. “So it’s all over now, right? Are all battles that short?”

“Sometimes. Others last for a week or even a month. But that’s with equal forces.” Hakuryuu looked at Judar, his expression turning serious. “This will probably be the last time you can fight with so little resistance. No other country will risk Kouen’s lack of attention towards the threat of magic. That goes for threats such as the Seven Seas Alliance, with which our country skirmished at Musta’sim. If they were to improve their technology and invade other countries, you would be a dead man.”

Judar shrugged. “If humans ever find a way to defend against everything I can do, they deserve my head as a trophy.”

“You’re… surprisingly easygoing.”

“I have good reason to be. The Seven Seas Alliance doesn’t invade other countries, right? So they’re not a threat to us. No other countries have the means to develop the technology to kill me, either.”

“A few humans on a ship can kill a siren.”

“Not all sirens are strong like me,” Judar reminded him. “I’m special.”

“How so, aside from your special need to brag?”

“The rukh adore me. Not just white rukh, either. The black rukh that unnerves others loves me as well. Most sirens can’t say the same.”

“This is the first I’ve heard of it,” Hakuryuu said. “Though I did notice when you showed me with clairvoyance magic… is your black rukh really so unusual?”

Judar smiled. He looked at Hakuryuu, thoughtful with the new information, his own black rukh calmly considering the possibilities. “Wanna know a secret?” Judar asked. “Your rukh is black, too. It wasn’t before, but I watched it change. Just like I’m a special siren, you’re a special human. See?”

“Can you say with certainty that it’s special? To me it just sounds unusual.”

“It’s really great,” Judar said, and he meant it. “And strong.”

“Why? What makes it different?”

“The other rukh is full of reasons. Black rukh doesn’t have anything like that,” Judar said. “By killing humans, their rukh is transferred to me. It still lives by their purpose, but black rukh doesn’t have anything like that.” He hadn’t understood the words of the dead witch who called it purposeless, but he was starting to.

“That doesn’t sound like a good thing.”

“It is. You’re not letting anyone else’s purpose taint you. Isn’t that great? You looked at the world and its rukh and told it that you no longer wanted to play a part in its flow, and now your rukh is alone without that light of purpose. Alone together with mine, and those who died on the battlefield. I understand it now.”

“Why is yours black?”

Judar blinked. “It’s, um… probably like that for the same reason as yours.”

“You don’t know.”

“Yeah. I don’t know.”

Hakuryuu sighed. “Why do you never tell me these things?”

“What do you mean? I tell you everything.”

“Just what does ‘everything’ mean in your mind?” Hakuryuu asked. 

“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean? I tell you everything important.”

“Your idea of what’s important could use some work.”

“It’s just rukh,” Judar said. “It’s all pretty meaningless stuff either way. Thinking too hard about it’ll just give you a headache.”

“No, it just gives _you_ a headache,” Hakuryuu said. “Rukh is the most basic element of life, isn’t it? It’s concerning that it changed. And you just said it was special…”

“But I’m fine and mine’s always been like this. You worry too much. You should be celebrating your victory instead.”

“We don’t have time to celebrate,” Hakuryuu said. “You need to be well rested to transfer to Balbadd. We can talk about this another time.”

Hakuryuu had covered it well with his words, but he couldn’t hide the hurt from within his rukh. He pulled away when Judar tried to lay his head on his back.

Judar understood why Hakuryuu was upset with him. Hakuryuu had trusted him with everything since Gyokuen died even though it was so difficult for him, and yet Judar couldn’t do the same. 

He stared up into the darkness. It was a little cold laying on his own. He had blankets, sure, but they weren’t the same as a warm body that curled into him for comfort. His nose was cold, too.

It probably wouldn’t be difficult to tell Hakuryuu when something bothered him, or about the black rukh and how Gyokuen shared it. He knew how frustrating it was to be kept out of the loop, and yet something kept him from talking.

He could garner pity by talking about the death of his parents all he wanted. He could ask for Hakuryuu’s comfort and probably receive it. But even if he did, that comfort would never reach him.

Judar had killed a whole colony just the same, after all. He had no right to receive comfort for his circumstances when he was no different from Gyokuen. He could tell Hakuryuu about what he’d done in Musta’sim, and… and…?

Hakuryuu probably wouldn’t understand. He would use his fake justice to explain away the inconsistencies and not condemn Judar how he should because he’d become dependant on Judar’s power and his attention and comfort.

Judar glanced at Hakuryuu’s back. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness of the tent and he could see that Hakuryuu wasn’t breathing as deeply as he would if he were asleep.

No matter what he did, Hakuryuu would probably accept it without question. That was what he’d been saying without words since they killed Gyokuen together. He might be angry about it at first, but he’d adjust his reality until he could accept it.

Maybe he’d be more critical if he had someone else to fall back on. But he didn’t. And Judar didn’t particularly want him to have anyone else. Monopolizing another person’s world was a great feeling.

“Hey, Hakuryuu.”

“…What?”

Judar bumped his cold nose to Hakuryuu’s back again. He didn’t move away this time, clearly trusting him to make it right so he could relax already.

“I like your rukh a lot. Even if it were bad, I’d still like it.”

Hakuryuu didn’t move away. “Let’s just go to sleep.”

Judar smiled and kissed his back. Hakuryuu twitched - he must have felt it. “It’s cold sleeping on the other side of the tent, you know.”

“Then don’t surprise me with these things out of nowhere.”

“But it’s more fun this way.”

“Go to sleep.”

Judar mumbled an unintelligible _fine_ into his clothes.

Hakuryuu wasn’t so gullible that he took sweet words as fact. But if he wanted to believe something, he would. That was part of the charm.


	18. Chapter 18

It was Judar’s first time in Balbadd.

His first impression was that it looked nothing like the Kou Empire. His second impression was that it soon would. Many buildings were now sporting a wooden facade reminiscent of Rakushou’s shops, and many others were being torn down completely for replacement.

“What’s the point of all that?” He found himself asking.

“To take away their individuality,” Hakuryuu said, then backtracked. “Have you been outside of the Kou Empire before?”

Technically, he didn’t set foot in Kou until he was twenty, and had seen the shores of Musta’sim. But Judar understood what he meant. It’d be bad if someone listened in on them, and that was easy to do in the narrow streets of Balbadd. “No.”

“Other countries have different cultures. Different foods and clothes and architecture. Once they become part of the Kou Empire, those differences cease to exist.”

They passed another crumbling brick storefront. “Are you gonna continue the reconstruction so it’s the same as it’s always been? Or make it more like Rakushou?”

“I have no interest in taking the people of Balbadd’s values from them,” Hakuryuu said. “Though I can’t say I see the point in destroying the work that’s already been done to it.”

Judar didn’t point out that he had no trouble taking the values of their own army from them. Instead, he focused on more important things. “Do you think they still serve Balbadd-original foods here?”

“I thought you swore off trying new things already.”

“I did! But that’s just because it felt like you were trying to kill me. But they’re by the ocean, right? I bet the fish is way fresher here than in Rakushou.”

“Probably. We have more important things to do before you worry about that, though.”

The city was much smaller than Rakushou. It wasn’t hard to walk to the palace before relaxing. The entry hall’s decor had already been redone according to what was popular in Kou, but Judar doubted the whole thing had been fixed up like that already. It hadn’t been long since Balbadd fell under the Kou Empire’s control after all.

A group of servants bowed as they entered. “We’ve been expecting you, Your Highness.”

The servants offered to show the Eastern Army generals to their rooms. Since Hakuryuu was the only one with a ranking higher than general remaining, that basically just meant him. Judar tagged along anyway.

Hakuryuu was shown a grand bedroom that was already redecorated in reds and golds. Judar was shown to a similar one.

“I want one that looks different,” Judar complained. “Don’t you have any that look, you know, Balbadd-like left?”

The servants looked at each other in confusion. Hakuryuu just sighed. He didn’t join them to the opposite end of the palace where Judar was shown another room. It was smaller than the previous rooms but had a foreign atmosphere to it with its plain white sheets and white curtains.

In Kou, white was for royalty. Judar had grown used to that idea. In Balbadd, it just was just the color of everything. 

Now all he had to do was convince Hakuryuu to sleep with him in it.

He nodded his approval and the servants were glad to get a break. “Wait,” Judar said as they tried to walk away. “Run me a bath. A hot one.” He could just heat it up himself with fire magic, sure, but there was always the risk of accidentally boiling his skin off with that. It was better to have someone who knew how to do it run one.

“…Yes, sir.”

The bath didn’t have the same scented oils available as Rakushou’s. He tried using a few different kinds and the smells mixed together in a pleasant way. He took his time drying and rebraiding his hair. He could just as easily do it with magic, but it was always neater when he did it by hand.

After bathing Judar killed time exploring the palace. Balbadd could be seen from all angles through the windows. Many buildings showed extreme wear from the rebellions and a generation of poverty, and many others looked as well kept as Rakushou. Suddenly he remembered that Kougyoku lived in Balbadd. He didn’t know where to look for her and figured she’d eventually come to say hello to the new emperor anyway, so he didn’t bother looking for her. There would be enough time to do that later. Instead he looked for Hakuryuu who, luckily, was easy to find.

“Kouen’s execution is scheduled for a week from now,” Hakuryuu informed him. “I would have liked for it to be done in the capital, but everyone is already assembled here. I don’t want him to try breaking out on the journey, either. In addition I will exile his brothers who appeared on the battlefield before me.”

“Cool. So after that, you’re emperor?”

“No. I have to be enthroned first.”

“Can’t be that hard. Might as well just call yourself emperor now.”

“The crown prince has in the past died before enthronement. It isn’t official until the ceremony,” Hakuryuu said, then realized it was pointless to argue about and changed the subject. “It seems that Balbadd has a singular dining hall in the palace. They’ll be serving dinner there.”

Judar shrugged off Hakuryuu’s bad mood. He always got stressed when things happened, even if they were going just how he wanted them to. He’d feel better in a few days, Judar was sure of it.

Dinner was much better than army rations. It was similar to Hakuryuu’s cooking but many of the dishes were too spicy for Judar to eat.

When he reached to try something that Hakuryuu already tried, he watched without saying anything and smiled when Judar had to drink three glasses of water to try to get the spice out his mouth. That brat thought it was funny. Judar resolved to eat nothing but the single spiceless dish he found for the rest of their time in Balbadd.

Why humans ate spicy food was beyond him.

“Are you going to see Kouen?” Judar asked after dinner. Kougyoku never did show up to eat. He remembered hearing from Hakuryuu that her husband was killed - maybe she’d gone back to Rakushou after all, with no point left in staying at Balbadd. Especially if she was still homesick.

“I’ll see him tomorrow.”

“They found me a real Balbadd room. Come sleep with me.”

“They’re all ‘real Balbadd rooms.’ We’re in Balbadd.” Hakuryuu looked around solemnly, noting the officials walking through the hallway. “And… lower your voice.”

“Huh? Why?”

“I told you before. Every country is different, and Balbadd was independent until only recently. Please show some restraint.”

“Like I said, I don’t even know what you’re talking about…”

Hakuryuu sighed. “Which way was your room?”

Judar showed him the general direction but got lost somewhere at the end. “I think it’s somewhere around here,” he grumbled. “I didn’t close the door so I’d know which one, but there are a lot of doors. Maybe it was the next hall over?”

Hakuryuu rolled his eyes. They found it, eventually. Hakuryuu closed the door and sort of crossed his arms - they didn’t exactly cross with the reduced length of his left arm - and glared.

“What’d I do this time?” Judar asked. He flopped down on the bed. It smelled fresh.

“You can’t ask me to sleep in your bed in public here. Really, you shouldn’t be doing that in public anywhere.”

“Why not?”

“I’ve explained this to you many times. It’ll sound like we’re sleeping together.”

Judar closed his eyes. Hakuryuu could be pretty annoying when he wanted to be. “We are sleeping together.”

“No, I mean—”

“We _are_ having sex,” Judar interrupted.

“That was only once…”

“Wanna do it again?”

“That’s not the point!”

Judar sighed. “Tell me the point then.”

“…It’s not normal here, culturally. For me to be intimate with a man. It could cause problems.”

“Balbadd is always causing problems. It’s not like one more problem will make much of a difference.” Judar sat up suddenly. “And hey, you know I’m not really a man, right?”

“Be serious.”

“I am being serious. I’m the same inside as any other siren. Humans have different bodies, and are men or women, but we don’t. We all have everything. Pretty convenient, huh?”

Hakuryuu didn’t seem to believe him. “But you have a deeper voice than women. And a flat chest. You’re tall, too.”

“By chance. Seems to have helped me out in the human world, though. Guess I should be thankful. Titus might have a lot more trouble than me with that, come to think of it.”

Hakuryuu looked up and down Judar’s body. “If that’s the case… then…?”

“You look like you’re about to have a meltdown or something. Don’t start treating me like you treat women, okay? That’d drive me up a wall.”

Hakuryuu stood, dumbfounded. “You could have told me this sooner.”

“Isn’t it more fun to get a surprise every now and then?” Judar patted the spot beside him. “Sleep in here.”

It might’ve only been because Hakuryuu still had questions, but he stayed. “So then, if you were to fully recreate a human body, how would you make it?”

“How would you want it?”

“…I think of you as a man after all, so…”

“But if it were a woman’s body, I could give you a heir.”

“Don’t joke about that. I get the feeling you don’t even know what you’re suggesting.”

Judar laughed. “Probably not. It only takes seconds for us, but judging by your face I bet it’s not that easy for you guys. It sounds like it’d be a pain anyway. I hated looking after the kids in my colony.”

“Why were there so many kids?” Hakuryuu asked.

“Three isn’t really a lot.”

“It is if everyone lives thousands of years.”

“I guess, but I think they felt bad seeing kids play alone. Hey, speaking of which, we can’t have accidental kids like humans,” Judar said. “You know, like Kougyoku? She’d never have been born if she were a siren.”

“That’s weird…”

“If you think it’s weird hearing me explain it, think of the most stressed granny ever explaining it. Just terrible.”

Hakuryuu wrinkled his nose.

With his original goal of scolding Judar forgotten, he looked like he settled in pretty well. He asked more pointless questions about siren biology that Judar did his best to answer until Hakuryuu understood reasonably well how everything worked.

“Stay here,” Judar said again.

“My belongings are in another room. I shouldn't.”

“You can get them tomorrow,” Judar said. He butted his head on Hakuryuu’s shoulder and rested it there. Hakuryuu relaxed to his touch.

“All my clothes are there.”

“You can use mine.”

“After I tell you to tone it down, you ask me to walk back to my room in your clothes…”

“No one would notice. We’re nearly the same size. Besides, you’ll be emperor. What can a rumor or two do to hurt you?”

“Maybe you’re right.”

Judar smiled. “You’re always worrying about pointless details, you know that? You should relax more.”

“Are you trying to pick me up?”

“Maybe.”

Hakuryuu cuffed him lightly on the head. Judar laughed.

“Is that a yes?”

Hakuryuu moved Judar to kiss him. “Maybe,” he said inches from Judar’s lips.

It didn’t take long for Hakuryuu to be kissing him into the soft bed. Their closeness and his warm breath along with his hair tickling Judar’s face made him giddy. He wondered if Hakuryuu felt the same when they kissed. In the beginning, he was sure that Hakuryuu didn’t. Now he wasn’t so sure.

Hakuryuu tried to readjust their position with his left arm like it were still there. As soon as he realized his mistake he used his right arm instead.

“Can you still feel it?” Judar asked.

“Sometimes.”

Judar hummed acknowledgment and ran a hand through Hakuryuu’s hair. When it reached his hair pin he removed it, and undid the ribbon and cloth holding his hair up.

He liked the messy way Hakuryuu’s hair fell after being tied up all day. He liked the strange look Hakuryuu gave him when he took his hair down or undressed him, too. It was like he was wondering if Judar didn’t have anything better to do. He didn’t.

“…I feel a little bad not being able to do anything in return,” Hakuryuu confessed.

“I’ll figure that magic out one of these days,” Judar said. “The one Gyokuen used to keep looking human in the isolation barrier. It was some technique that didn’t require a magoi flow, unlike the one that depends on it that I’ve been using.” He smiled. “Then you can make it up to me.”

Hakuryuu sat up to talk. It might’ve been tiring laying on Judar with only the one arm to hold himself up. “I would have thought you’d try to replicate it immediately.”

“I’ve been busy! You keep telling me I need to learn weird spells all the time. So I never got around to it.”

“Then that will be your new task. Also, I was thinking earlier that it’d be good if you learned healing magic as well.”

“Way to ruin the mood,” Judar complained. Hakuryuu seemed like he’d rather do something else now too. “Oh well. I guess it’s late anyway.”

“You don’t even get into the mood. How could I possibly ruin it for you?”

Judar scooted away and fluffed up a pillow. The ones in Balbadd were a little different from the pillows at home. “By making me tired,” he said. “But I still want you to sleep in here. I’m not kicking you out.”

“Fine. Where did they put your clothes?”

“I dunno. I took a bath while they put everything away.”

Hakuryuu tried a few drawers before finding them. He tossed a robe to Judar and set to the task of getting changed. It took him a while longer now, but it’d just humiliate him to offer to help. So Judar changed and took his time finding a comfortable position to sleep in.

Hakuryuu joined him and cuddled him from his back. Normally they were in the opposite position, but it felt nice to be held sometimes too instead of always doing the holding.

“You smell different,” Hakuryuu mumbled.

“I have a smell?”

“Everyone does. Have you never noticed?”

“Not really. Oh, but I notice yours. You smell like that incense you burn when you’re not feeling well. The smell sticks to your bed, too.”

“You usually smell like roses from that oil you use. Very misleading.”

Judar smiled. “Should I switch to jasmine?”

“…No. Roses are fine.”

Their conversation faded and Judar soon fell asleep.

Hakuryuu woke him up early to tie his hair up, and Judar did so in a half asleep state. Hakuryuu kissed him as thanks and left soon after. Judar blinked a few times, and when that didn’t get the tired dryness to leave his eyes, he opted to fall back asleep.

He was surprised to see when he woke a second time that the sky was still foggy. Judar ate breakfast and got the fine idea to go see Kouen and mock him first thing in the morning. The guards let him in easy enough - rumors spread fast from the army to the palace and now it felt like everyone knew that he was Hakuryuu’s most trusted and deadly ally, allowed to do whatever he saw fit.

Kouen looked, to be frank, like absolute shit. His beard was untrimmed and his hair greasy. He did react when Judar walked in, though, which meant he was aware enough to have a nice conversation.

“To what do I owe the honor of a visit from Hakuryuu’s famous magician?”

Judar grinned. “News spreads fast.”

“That it does,” Kouen agreed. “And yet too slowly all the same.”

“You could’ve prevented this, you know. It wouldn’t have been hard for you.”

“So I was told.”

“Why didn't you kill us when you had the chance?” Judar asked. “You would’ve had a much better life. A longer one, too.”

“I didn’t think you'd help him, even if you did know magic. You had no reason to want Gyokuen dead. No reason to help him fight his war,” Kouen said. 

“C’mon, Mr. General Commander. I thought you were smarter than that.” He shook his head, pacing around the room and wagging his finger at the tied-up prince. “It's murder. What does a reason matter?”

“It’s everything. There would be no murder without motive.”

“You think like that because you’re human. But, you know? Not everyone is.” Judar turned on his heel to smile down on Kouen. “See you at your execution. Nice knowing you and all.”

“…Yes. A pleasure.”

Judar spent the rest of the day with Hakuryuu. He was back to his bad mood from stress but Judar had a goal in mind - he wanted Hakuryuu to come with to search for Balbadd’s specialty fish in town.

“They’re not going to tell you even if they do have it,” Hakuryuu told him pointedly. “It’s against the law for them to hold onto their culture, and for all they know you could be stationed to here to fine for noncompliance.”

“It’s just fish. It’s not like I’m asking to see their thousand year traditions or anything.”

“The fine’s the same either way,” Hakuryuu said and sighed.

It was probably the fifth or sixth time he sighed in the past hour. Judar frowned. “Still… you could pass a new law saying it’s okay now. Then we could go get some.”

“Why are you including me in this, again?”

“Because it’s boring going alone!”

“I met with Kougyoku earlier. You could go with her…”

“Well…” Judar crossed his arms. “I do want to see what she’s up to, but she’s not really who I wanted to look around town with.”

“I’m busy.”

“You’re just gonna put yourself in a worse mood, you know.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Hakuryuu mumbled. Judar would suggest he take a nap if there were any chance Hakuryuu would actually do it.

“Whatever. Where was Kougyoku?”

“I saw her in the gardens.”

Judar didn’t bother asking why he was in the gardens if he was so busy. He probably wasn’t really that busy, after all - he just had something he wanted to think about. Judar left him to do just that.

It took far too long to find the gardens but Kougyoku was there just as Hakuryuu said. She looked up when Judar entered but just smiled stiffly. “It’s been awhile,” she greeted.

“Yeah, I guess so.” Judar glanced around the garden to see many flowers still in bloom. Nothing was in bloom in Rakushou anymore but Balbadd was sub-tropical and always a different shade of green. It was also always a different shade of foggy, which tended to ruin his hair. “I heard your husband died,” Judar said. “You gonna go back to Rakushou?”

Kougyoku looked down solemnly. It didn’t take a genius to see he upset her.

“I thought you didn’t like him.”

Kougyoku shook her head. “I didn’t… but I didn’t hate him, either. And things were starting to change…”

“What do you mean?”

Kougyoku sniffled and wiped her eyes before continuing. “He started to take me into the city and show me all the things that made Balbadd the country it was… The thieves’ gang that was tearing the city apart before we came, I met them all… They are all honest and good people who wanted the best for their country.”

Her voice wavered but she didn’t stop to cry. “Even though I’m a princess of the Kou Empire, he showed me his family and they accepted me. It was my first time making friends.”

Kougyoku’s eyes focused on a pretty vine that bloomed in hundreds of little white stars. It wasn’t one that Judar recognized. He wondered briefly if it only grew in Balbadd. It took Kougyoku a minute to collect her thoughts and continue.

“I think that I was falling in love.”

Judar moved his braid across his shoulder. Why did Kougyoku always have to talk about that stuff? She was such a hopeless romantic. “How’d he die, anyway? I didn’t get any details from Hakuryuu.”

“When my brothers left for Musta’sim, he got that idea back in his head. That the people of Balbadd should have the right to live as themselves, not as people of Kou. And he acted on it. He retook the palace easily, since he was technically king, but soon my brothers were back to regroup to fight in the civil war, and he was killed without a second thought.”

“Hmm. He probably knew it’d end like that.”

“Yes, but his love for Balbadd wouldn’t let him accept the way our people left it.”

“Hakuryuu’s not gonna enforce all those laws,” Judar said. “If he were a little more patient he’d still be alive.”

Kougyoku nodded. “But how was he supposed to know what the new emperor would be like?”

“Guess so. He had the chance and took it. It’s not a bad way to die.” Really, he sounded like the kind of person that Judar would have liked - someone who did things without worrying about life or death or if anyone else wished for it. “Are you gonna remarry?”

Kougyoku crossed her arms over her stomach and looked away. The tears finally started to fall from her eyes.

“Forget I asked,” Judar said and left her crying in the garden. Ka Koubun would find her and comfort her later anyway.

Days passed without much changing. Hakuryuu had lots of work to do and remained stressed and unwilling to spend time with Judar. Kougyoku was still in mourning for her late husband and her brother who would soon be executed. In summary, Judar was bored.

It wasn’t until the day before Kouen’s execution that something happened. Hakuryuu finally approached him to talk.

“Judar, do you think…” He stopped, took a breath, and tried again. “Or rather, about the execution…”

He was having trouble articulating what he meant to say so Judar helped him out. “Right, that’s tomorrow, isn’t it? I’m really looking forward to the face Kouen’s loyal soldiers are gonna make when his head rolls off.”

Hakuryuu didn’t meet his eyes. “Yes,” he agreed with an unsure voice. “I also… will look forward to it.”

With that he left. Judar watched his back, confused at what Hakuryuu had wanted to say.

\---

The execution was everything Judar thought it would be. Many of Balbadd’s people were happy to see the man who stole their country’s individuality die, and many others cried at their beloved commander’s death. The sea of rukh before them couldn’t decide which direction to flow and clashed with everything from the sound of cheers of the people of Balbadd to the tear-stuck faces and torn uniforms of the soldiers.

Judar stood at the front stage with Hakuryuu and watched as Kouen stared defiantly up at them. Slowly, Hakuryuu rose his hand. Kouen’s eyes did not follow - they instead bore into Hakuryuu’s stern face.

In a second it was over. Kouen’s head fell and rolled, his eyes still seeming to stare right through Hakuryuu.

Judar didn’t know if the cheers or the crying rukh was louder. Every now and then he would see flecks of black in the mass and wonder if they belonged to any one person or were nothing but the fact of execution, no different from the blue tinted rukh that was a fact of the sea.

By the time Judar focused and thought to insist they go out to celebrate, Hakuryuu had already left.

It took nearly an hour to find him. Directions weren’t Judar’s strong suit, and Balbadd’s palace just didn’t make sense like Rakushou’s did. He even checked and double checked to make sure Hakuryuu hadn’t retired early for the day.

By the time he thought to check the rooms surrounding the throne, he was less interested in eating Balbadd’s specialties and more interested in complaining about the palace’s layout.

He pushed doors open carelessly, only giving each room a short look over before moving over. So when he finally found Hakuryuu, he at first didn’t understand the situation.

Hakuryuu sat, alone, in a small and dim room meant for advisors to meet with the king. His expression was one that Judar had become very familiar with in the days after killing Gyokuen.

Though Hakuryuu was staring at nothing on the other side of the room in a harmless way, he had a sword held to the side of his neck. Judar couldn’t tell if he truly meant to use it, or had just been debating that very thing.

When he noticed that he was no longer alone, Hakuryuu lowered his sword slowly. “Judar…”

Judar took a minute to catch his breath. Anyone else who walked in on that scene might run over to take the sword or push it away from him. But all Judar managed was a dumb sounding “What?”

Hakuryuu didn’t answer for a long moment. Judar gave him time to think of what to say. He didn’t look much like his mind was going quickly at the moment, after all.

“For what reason did I kill all those people…”

“To take your country back,” Judar offered.

“Was this… worth it?”

Judar didn’t respond. It wasn’t his place to decide if it was worth it for Hakuryuu or not. Not when he didn’t even know if it was worth it for himself.

“A while back… a year and a half ago, now.”

Judar leaned on the arm of the chair opposite to Hakuryuu to listen.

“I didn't mean to wake up so early but I couldn’t sleep. I kept trying, but every time I finally fell asleep I dreamt of something startling… dreamt of that fire… and woke up. There are only so many times that I can relive it in one night. So I got dressed and resolved to get more sleep only when I was too exhausted to continue moving, in hopes that I would also be too exhausted to dream.”

Hakuryuu blinked a few times, but otherwise remained expressionless. “I went outside, towards to palace gates for some fresh air. It’d stopped raining but everything was wet and I kept to the paved halls. There I saw… you…”

Judar nodded. He knew what happened already, more or less. But if it would help Hakuryuu’s mind sort itself out to tell him of it, he had no problem listening.

“I didn’t know what to think,” Hakuryuu continued. “You wore clothes I’d only seen illustrated in old Parthevian scrolls but in all ways appeared to be a man of the eastern continent. And the strangest part, of course, was that you were passed out in the middle of the palace on a rainy night. On a normal day I may have left you to die there, assuming you to be a bad spy, or let a guard deal with you. But I reached down to see if you were still alive and remembered from my dreams my brother telling me that all lives had value, only days before his death, and was compelled to carry you back in.”

Hakuryuu rose the sword once again until its blade touched his forehead. “I only went through the motions of helping you because it was what my brothers would have done… I didn’t care about you, and when I heard you speak Torran when you first awoke, I thought of you as someone that I could use. I didn’t for one second think that I was glad that you survived. Only that I could use you.”

“And you did.”

“Yes. I did.”

“Do you have regrets?” Judar asked.

“…Once I found out about… you being a siren, and the things you’d done… I made what I thought to be the right choice. I didn’t want you to keep killing people for such a stupid reason.”

“Everything is a stupid reason.”

“I realized that, eventually. Only my personal feelings mattered, and what I wanted was to fight together with you regardless. But after killing Alibaba and Kouen, I don’t know that I can say with certainty that I still believe that…” 

“I won't tell you what to do,” Judar said. “That's your job.”

Another pause. The candlelight flickered a few times, but Hakuryuu didn’t react to its inconsistency. He didn’t move, lost in thought.

“When we were talking before the war,” Hakuryuu said, “and you told me that you would just kill yourself when you got tired… did you mean it?”

“Yeah.”

“I think that I’ve gotten tired.”

“Kouen is dead now,” Judar said. “If you die, who will rule?”

“I don't know. My sister, perhaps.”

“What would you expect me to do if you died?”

“I don’t know. You could do whatever you want.”

Judar bit his lip. “I want to spend more time with you.”

Hakuryuu looked up from his sword. His far away expression held the faintest glimmer of hope.

“It doesn't really matter that you only wanted to use me,” Judar said. “I knew that when I agreed to help. You only thought of revenge and nothing else. Of course there was no place for me in your thoughts. But you aren’t trying to make amends by telling me this, are you?”

“No…”

“But you feel regret all the same.”

Hakuryuu nodded, but more than the regret he felt he seemed ashamed that he had to admit such a thing in the first place.

Judar looked away. It was probably his fault in part for not hearing him out before Kouen’s execution, expecting that Hakuryuu wanted him dead the same as he had months ago. “I don’t mind,” Judar said. “Human are always changing. I know that.”

Hakuryuu didn’t respond.

“So… let's keep going. There are many things that I haven’t seen yet in this human world, you know? I want to see them. Sindria, Reim, Parthevia, Musta’sim… they’re all enemies that you’ve inherited, right? I want to see how you deal with them. I can’t do that if you die now.”

Hakuryuu’s eyes didn’t sparkle at the prospect of more fighting in the same way that Judar's did, but he was able to smile in return with his chapped lips.

He knew that what he was asking was for Hakuryuu to live for him. It didn’t matter if he only saw Judar as a tool for many months. Back then Judar had seen him as a toy, his human toy that would wither up and die long before he got bored. They were both too selfish to see the other as anything more.

And yet… they progressed. When Judar returned to the sea all he thought of was Hakuryuu. Since they were similar, it wouldn’t be difficult for Hakuryuu to think of nothing but him.

“Okay,” Hakuryuu agreed. “If that’s what you want… then I will follow your lead.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hakuryuu has always been argumentative and disagreeable but aside from some banter, he's extremely agreeable when it comes to judar in the kou empire arc. 
> 
> there are a variety of ways it could go with the pressure from kouen and the pressure from judar, but after spending so much time with judar i think he'd be far more inclined to listen to what he says. especially since aladdin isnt here to urge him to think about his future


	19. Chapter 19

It became clear that the emptiness Hakuryuu felt after killing Gyokuen never subsided - it was only pushed to the side in favor of fighting Kouen. Now that Kouen was dead as well, that emptiness only grew.

Judar was at a standstill. He did not feel better or worse for having killed Kouen. He’d already killed enough people that one more was nearly meaningless. But he didn’t know where to push forward other than in the direction that continued to empty Hakuryuu.

Hakuryuu might not’ve kept the sword to his neck, but he didn’t seem to be in much different of a mindset. He tried to stick to Judar’s side instead of proceeding with his new position with his chin held high like Judar thought he would.

He wasn’t slacking or anything, though. As a rule of thumb Hakuryuu never slacked. With no injury to confine him to bed as he had last time, he went through the motions of being crown prince. It was a bit charming, the way it happened. That blank expression would begin to shape his face once more, and it was only when Judar spoke to him that he would snap out of it and remember why he was alive before tending to whatever it was he felt was probably important.

Hakuryuu didn’t save any emotion for dealing with Kouha and Koumei and ordered them into exile without speaking with them. Judar didn’t have much more to say to them either. Only Kougyoku bothered to see them off.

With just their sister to acknowledge them, Judar hoped they enjoyed their taste of being forgotten and tossed-aside princes. Now that Kouen was dead they were useless.

Nobody could get between Hakuryuu and his goal anymore. Or at least, that’s what Judar would say if he believed ruling had ever been Hakuryuu’s goal. He’d looked forward to getting his country back, but the second it was truly in his reach he lost the energy to walk across the inner palace to claim the throne properly. It was more that he didn’t want anyone else to have it than that he wanted it to be his own.

Judar had always, since the very beginning, known that Hakuryuu wasn’t interested in ruling. He’d said as much, and if Hakuryuu had a choice in the matter it would be his older brother on the throne and he’d support them from the sides. Since he was on the other side of that now, the ruler when he’d never particularly desired to rule, Judar had to do everything in his power to support him. 

Maybe it was more fitting to say that all he _could_ do was support him. That was the place he’d carved out for himself from his efforts in the human world.

Judar expected Hakuryuu’s poor mood to pass in the same way it had after they killed Gyokuen. And, in time, it did.

Hakuryuu was never the most cheerful person, but seeing him wake up and go to sleep with the same unchangingly hopeless look did get to him. It was difficult to say that this was what he’d used his magic to achieve. Even if his face brightened just a little when it met Judar’s… 

Hakuryuu came out the other end a little different, just like what happened before. The first thing he did when the fog lifted was talk to Judar.

“We’re going to leave Balbadd soon,” Hakuryuu said. “You’ve wanted to go out the whole time we’ve been here, right? We can go now, if you’d like.”

He didn’t sound too enthusiastic and Judar was doubtful. Even so, the willingness to do something more than making sure the country didn’t fall apart was an improvement. “Sure,” he said and smiled.

Even if he agreed, he assumed Hakuryuu’s bad mood would make it boring. He was pleased to see that Hakuryuu found a bit of excitement in looking around, too. The new sights and smells, some good and some bad, made looking around fun.

Balbadd was a maze of broken stone roads and smoke filled alleys. Each local they asked for directions told them to turn here or there to a street they quickly found didn’t have anywhere to eat. At first it was annoying, but it soon became funny.

“Does anyone know their way around this place?” Judar asked. “No wonder no one could figure out how to rule it. No one can even find their way around!”

“I think they’re doing it on purpose,” Hakuryuu said. “They must think we’re soldiers.”

“A soldier is the _last_ thing I’d mistake you for.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You dress like a noble,” Judar said. “Or, you know, an emperor.”

“Should you really be talking? You buy new clothes practically weekly, and they’re never even that different from what you already have! Make fun of Balbadd’s old government all you want - you’re no better with money.”

Judar laughed. “I don’t need to be. That’s your job.”

They tried Balbadd’s famous fried snapper together after a long search. The chef was suspicious of them at first, but was soon delighted with Judar’s pleased expression and encouraged him to try many of Balbadd’s less famous dishes as well.

“You can’t eat that much,” Hakuryuu said pointedly when Judar tried to order another plate of the same fish.

“Can too! I can eat more than you think.”

“Strange how your stomach suddenly shrinks when faced with vegetables then, isn’t it?”

“…Shut up!”

Hakuryuu laughed. 

He never did end up finishing the second fish. Even with Hakuryuu’s help, some had to go to the stray cats that began to rub against their legs after sundown, immune to the chef’s shooing motions. After dinner, they walked through the old town’s alleys together, talking aimlessly about whatever came to mind. They got lost together and argued about whose fault it was together.

“This is last time I’ll ever listen to you when it comes to directions,” Hakuryuu said, out of breath from arguing and walking through smoke. “You’re terrible at this.”

“If you were any better at it you wouldn’t have gotten lost with me.”

“It’s lucky that we don’t have anywhere we need to be tomorrow, really.”

Judar smiled. “Yeah.”

With the sky hidden by fog so thick the moon was barely visible, it took another long while of walking to find the palace again. Judar didn’t mind, though. Talking to Hakuryuu was more important than making it back in a timely manner, and judging by Hakuryuu’s increasingly slow paced walking, he agreed.

“I wonder what it’d look like without all this rubble,” Hakuryuu said. “It must be from the recent rebellion.”

Judar nodded, considering the difference between the ruined inner palace and its repaired form. He couldn’t imagine a splendid Balbadd at all. But it might be fun to explore like that, too. “Maybe then it’d be easier to find your way around in.”

Hakuryuu rolled his eyes. “I told you, that’s just your bad sense of direction.”

“Hey!”

By the time they arrived back at the palace it was as if Hakuryuu had never been empty again. He looked alive, if a little tired, Kouen in the back of his mind. Good. A victor didn’t need to think of the losers anymore.

“I think I will have them stop the reconstruction of Balbadd before we leave,” Hakuryuu said. “I like it how it is now.”

“Things would get boring if the whole world looked just like Rakushou,” Judar agreed. “Even if it’s impossible to get around after sundown. Plus, I’d like that fish to still be here next time.”

“I could try making something like it at home," Hakuryuu said. “Though that type of snapper is only native to these waters, so I’d have to use a different species.”

“I wanna try it with tuna.”

“Of course you’d pick the most expensive fish first,” Hakuryuu sighed. “You’re so spoiled.”

“Don’t you like tuna, Hakuryuu? You’re in charge now! If you wanted to, you could have every fisherman in the country surrender his tuna to the palace. Wouldn’t that be fun? Then I’d never have to eat vegetables again because we’d just have tuna every day!”

“That’s never happening. Besides, you couldn’t eat a single whole tuna. What makes you think you could eat all the tuna every fisherman caught in the country every day?”

Judar laughed. “You have so much confidence in the country’s fisherman. Tuna are pretty hard to catch, you know.”

At some point they’d begun holding hands. Judar didn't really notice it himself until he caught the palace’s personnel staring.

They’d never held hands in front of others like that before. Being stared for walking with Hakuryuu was such a foreign feeling that Judar could only smile pointedly at them. If Hakuryuu noticed, it didn’t bother him enough to let go of his hand.

Their room was just as he left it. It didn’t smell like incense but like clean linen and fresh air. Judar lit the oil lamp with magic. 

Once he locked the door behind them, Hakuryuu lightly pushed Judar onto the bed and kissed him.

His face was cold from being out in the cool autumn night for so long, though Judar’s wasn’t much better. The warmth made the tiredness in his legs melt away and he suddenly felt wide awake.

This was a good sign. If Hakuryuu wanted to touch him, it was great. It meant he had the energy to do so, and that in itself filled Judar with the will to see it through this time.

Judar wrapped his arms around Hakuryuu’s back. Getting lost in kissing him was easy - he’d never get tired of the feeling of Hakuryuu’s breath on his face or his mouth on his lips. It was especially fun when his human instincts began to take over, making him forceful.

Hakuryuu pushed Judar’s bangs away from his face after he withdrew. His shy face didn’t match with his forceful style of kissing at all. Judar laughed.

“…What?”

“Humans are really weird. That’s all.”

“And you think sirens aren’t? Everything I hear about you guys just makes you sound weirder and weirder.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault we’re like this! If it were up to me, we’d be even stronger,” Judar said. “And be able to feel more, too.”

“What’s the point of being even stronger?” Hakuryuu asked. “The whole world could already be yours if you wanted it enough.”

Unsure of how to respond, Judar pulled Hakuryuu back down to kiss him.

Hakuryuu got the hint and grinded against him, pushing forward but never seeming to push back, until he was half hard.

“I wish I could fuck you,” Hakuryuu mumbled.

“What’s stopping you? I have a mouth.”

“…You’re pretty lewd for someone who claims to feel nothing.”

“I like your tongue in my mouth. Why wouldn’t I like—”

Hakuryuu kissed him hard to shut him up, bumping his nose just a little in the process. Though he was a human and sex was something that he did, Judar didn’t think he was very experienced at all. It showed in the way he kept adjusting positions and changing how he did things, trying to find something that worked for himself.

Judar bucked his hips into Hakuryuu’s, making him moan lowly into Judar’s mouth. Judar could feel that - its effect just started and stopped in his chest rather than moving downwards as it did in humans. It made his chest swell, a fondness that made him close his eyes to put his own rukh out of sight.

When Hakuryuu next pulled away, he adjusted Judar’s position under him just enough to remove his choker. Judar shivered at the cool air on his skin. Hakuryuu pressed his lips to Judar’s neck, then licked and nipped lightly at the skin.

It hurt. More than he thought it would. Judar pulled away instinctively.

“All talk, aren’t you?”

“…It just caught me off guard!”

Hakuryuu laughed, licked his neck and bit it again, then sucked on the same spot. It’d leave one hell of a mark, he was sure of it - more than that, it was past what his choker would cover and Hakuryuu knew it.

So that was the game they were playing.

Judar was surprised to find that Hakuryuu didn’t become any less hard spending minutes marking his neck and wondered if he got off on it. If that was the case, humans really were weirder than sirens. He took advantage of his position to move his hands from Hakuryuu’s back to tease him through his clothes.

It made Hakuryuu’s bites more erratic and sometimes he probably bit down harder than he meant to out of surprise. But if his intention was to leave marks, he was doing a great job of it.

By the time Hakuryuu was satisfied with the sorry state of his neck, Judar’s clothes had already slid halfway down his shoulders. Hakuryuu easily untied the rest of his robe and, almost as if an afterthought, undressed himself.

Judar took the opportunity to talk. “I was serious, you know. About using my mouth. Or is that not a thing humans do?”

“No… humans probably do everything.”

“What about you, Hakuryuu? Do you do everything?”

Hakuryuu considered it for a second. “Well… if you’re asking for it, I wouldn’t mind. But as usual I don’t think you know what you’re asking for.”

“What’s that supposed to mean!”

“I don’t want to accidentally hurt you.”

“You have some nerve saying that after you’ve covered my neck in bitemarks.”

“As if you haven’t done the same to me before.”

Tired of waiting, Judar moved to Hakuryuu’s lap. He tried touching Hakuryuu how he was shown to last time, but was soon corrected by Hakuryuu’s hand. After a minute, Hakuryuu spoke.

“You can use your mouth. If you still want to, I mean.”

Judar smiled. Victory. He kissed Hakuryuu’s lips just once as thanks before lowering himself. “How am I supposed to do this?” Judar asked. “Kiss it? Lick it?”

“Just don’t bite it.”

“Okay. I can do that.”

Judar first licked the precum that’d accumulated. It had a strange taste, but it wasn’t bad. He swirled circles around the tip and Hakuryuu reacted favorably by curling his fingers through Judar’s hair and pushing him lower. He groaned loudly at the feeling.

Judar pushed it farther down his throat. His gills fluttered blindly at the lack of air coming from his lungs, but he ignored it and kept bobbing his head.

It didn’t take long for Hakuryuu to twitch and cum into his mouth. It didn’t seem like it was a lot when it was on his stomach last time, but it was a different story when it was being forced down his throat.

He tried to swallow but managed to get it everywhere anyway.

Hakuryuu didn’t seem to mind the mess much. He brought a cloth for Judar to clean it up with.

Now that he was satisfied he was back to looking embarrassed. Judar got dressed again and clicked his choker back over his neck.

“That helps,” Hakuryuu said.

Judar felt around his collarbones. It did help, but not by much. The soldiers were gonna be so embarrassed when they saw him. “To think you were worried about this just earlier this week.”

“W, well… you were right. It doesn’t matter whether anyone knows. It would spread sooner than later anyway.”

Judar nodded in agreement. He stretched, finally remembering his soreness from walking for hours.

Hakuryuu reached over, hesitated for a moment, then pet Judar’s head softly.

“What’s that for?” Judar asked. It felt nice and all, but it made him feel a little like a child.

Hakuryuu paused. “Nothing,” he said after a moment and withdrew his hand.

“That didn’t mean you had to stop,” Judar tried to say, sitting up again, but yawned somewhere in the middle.

Hakuryuu offered a smile. They had been out for hours and he looked even more tired than Judar felt.

He thought of how depressed Hakuryuu had looked the past two weeks. It was hard to believe that the empty-eyed Hakuryuu from then and the sweat covered one from now were the same person, the only difference being time, and felt confidant that he wouldn’t kill himself next time either, even if he thought of it. Not as long as Judar was around.

He didn’t know if it was normal for humans to consider suicide occasionally or if Hakuryuu was in an abnormal state of mind. So he wasn’t really sure what to do other than stay by his side.

Judar fell asleep with Hakuryuu breathing softly by his side and thought tomorrow things would go back to normal. He didn’t expect for Hakuryuu to not bother getting out of bed until he did.

That continued until it was time to leave for Rakushou. He didn’t think it would continue once Hakuryuu had real work to do again, but it still left a sour taste in his mouth.

Either way, they were due for Rakushou. Judar transferred them there with ease.

Hakuryuu’s official enthronement was an occasion that Kou’s occupied territory’s leaders and allies showed up for. Naturally, that included his sister.

They spoke only in formalities. Hakuei was still openly and deeply hurt by the death of Kouen but perhaps even more hurt by the kind of person her little brother had become.

“Is this really what you want?” Hakuei asked in a quiet voice.

Hakuryuu nodded. He didn’t meet her eyes.

When she noticed Judar listening, she almost looked like she would cry.

He was pretty sure she thought Judar was responsible for the change. Maybe he was. But she had the chance to reach out to Hakuryuu before, too. She just didn’t take it.

She couldn’t just have him back now that all the hard work was done. The place by Hakuryuu’s side was his to keep.

“Was that all you wanted?” Judar asked her.

“…Please excuse me,” Hakuei said, bowed, and left his sight.

Judar smiled, waving as she went.

Even the king of Sindria showed his face to congratulate Hakuryuu after the ceremony was complete. He was a living legend, with some thirty and counting volumes of his adventures published. 

“Have you read them?” Judar asked.

“I have, but only because I went to Sindria. You shouldn’t bother. They’re unrealistic depictions of human abilities and limitations.”

In other words, Sindria’s king was much more creative than Hakuryuu was.

The coronation itself wasn’t very interesting. Judar stood at the platform, keeping a closer eye on Hakuryuu than he had during Kouen’s execution. As soon as it was over he followed Hakuryuu back.

“That crown looks pretty annoying to wear,” Judar said. He flicked a row of jade beads.

“It’s only for the ceremony,” Hakuryuu said.

“Tired?”

“Yeah. I think I’ll sleep for a bit.”

…He’d be fine. His rukh really was just tired. And anyway, it wasn’t like Judar to worry so much.

\---

Kougyoku chose to go back to Balbadd. She claimed that a good friend was pregnant and she wanted to be there for her. Judar didn’t really understand that part of human biology so he tried to avoid talking about it. No reason to blow his cover, even if Kougyoku wasn’t always the most observant.

Speaking of his cover, rumors decided with certainty that he was one of those mythical Torran magicians. Once a less than coherent soldier even tried practicing his broken Torran on him. Judar took the opportunity to evaporate the sweat off his skin. That scared him real good.

King Sinbad stuck around after Hakuryuu was crowned to establish diplomatic relations once Hakuryuu was settled in.

Judar didn’t meet him until it was time for his meeting with Hakuryuu. Normally he left Hakuryuu to do all his official duties by himself, but he was curious about how a human legend stood up to a siren.

Sinbad was a little taller than them both and Judar was acutely aware every time he (intentionally, it _had_ to be intentionally) looked down on them. A woman glared at Judar from Sinbad’s side, refusing to sit even as Sinbad did.

“Hello, Emperor Hakuryuu,” Sinbad greeted. “This is one of my generals, Yamraiha.”

Yamraiha held her hands to her chest politely and forced a smile. “It’s an honor to meet you.” Her eyes slid to Judar once again. “I come from the coasts of Musta’sim,” she said pointedly. “But I have been serving King Sinbad for some time now.”

Hakuryuu looked confused at being told such information but Judar understood immediately.

“I’m surprised that you managed to win without calling for my aid,” Sinbad said, getting right to the point.

“Yes. It turned out that Kouen was not so formidable of a foe after all…”

Sinbad, who only barely avoided conflict Kouen several times out of diplomatic efforts, narrowed his eyes. “There’s a rumor going around overseas.”

“Is there?”

“Yes. It claims that the new emperor of Kou has been taken in by something evil,” Sinbad said. “I would relay the full rumors, but they’re quite grotesque.”

Hakuryuu’s rukh flicked at Sinbad’s obvious stab in the dark. He smiled. “Is that so.”

Sinbad looked to Judar. “Will you introduce me?”

“Of course. This is Judar, my magician.”

“Though I’m not a general like yours is,” Judar added.

Yamraiha didn’t mind being outed. Of course she didn’t - she probably came to settle what happened to her home colony. It wouldn’t have been hard to trace their murder to Hakuryuu’s sudden rise to power coupled with the rumors of his magic.

For not being in on the context of Musta’sim, Hakuryuu caught on surprisingly easily. He changed the subject. “You wished to establish diplomatic ties, correct? What can you offer me?”

“If our countries were to fight, it would be as equals,” Sinbad said. “Many people would die. Is wanting to avoid that outcome not enough for you?”

“How boring,” Judar said. “I thought you were supposed to be a great king, but you’re just repeating Kouen’s lines.”

Hakuryuu stopped him. “Many would call Kouen a great king as well, Judar. Let’s hear him out.”

Sinbad, not used to being interrupted, took a moment to regain his composure. “As I was saying. Our countries would benefit from a non-aggression pact. I would also like to establish large scale trade as a form of friendship. I feel that our current trade routes are lacking considering that we have so much more to offer each other.”

“The Kou Empire is a self-sufficient nation,” Hakuryuu reminded him. “There is no resource that we would rely on Sindria for, and the same goes for Sindria. Even with additional trade there would be no assurance that we wouldn’t fight.”

“The Seven Seas Alliance does not invade other countries.”

“Then as a friend you will have to have faith in me to not invade you,” Hakuryuu said. “After all, I trusted you enough to ask for Sindria as an ally a year ago. My country is still recovering from the war and doesn’t have the resources to be sending away for increased trade.”

Sinbad frowned. “You will make the world nervous answering questions like that.”

“Please forgive my inexperience.” Though Hakuryuu’s words were polite, his tone was cold. 

“I suppose you won’t be open to the idea of joining the Seven Seas Alliance, then.”

“No. Kou will continue to live only by its own laws.”

Sinbad sighed and stood. He looked between Judar and Hakuryuu before settling his eyes on nothing in particular on the other side of the room. “I enjoyed meeting you in Sindria, Emperor Hakuryuu.”

“I enjoyed my time in Sindria as well. But the world must move on. Alibaba’s death is proof of that.”

Sinbad nodded solemnly, then addressed Judar. “In the Seven Seas Alliance, there are many sirens,” he said. “It is both our best kept secret and not a secret at all. And after your country’s armies left Musta’sim, it joined the Seven Seas Alliance. Until then, I had only seen such destruction as what happened on the coasts once before.”

“…Is that praise?”

“It’s a warning. We will protect our seas just as we protect our lands.” Sinbad flashed another smile before turning on his heel to leave, Yamraiha following close behind.

Once they were far out of hearing range Hakuryuu turned to Judar. “What did you do?”

“I killed the sirens by Musta’sim for their magoi.”

“When? And why didn’t you tell me?” Hakuryuu asked.

“Before we killed Gyokuen, and because you didn’t need an extra reason to hesitate.” Judar shrugged. “It helped you reach your goal anyway. We wouldn’t have won the war otherwise.”

Hakuryuu sighed. Judar thought he was going to scold him for keeping secrets again but he didn’t say anything for some time.

“It worked out fine, see?” Judar said. “Unless you had another colony in mind I could’ve gotten instead.”

“…I understand why you didn’t tell me immediately in this case,” Hakuryuu said. “But in the future tell me when something happens.”

Judar shrugged. Even if Hakuryuu had a point, he was being a hypocrite. He couldn’t just condemn his mother for doing these things and be indifferent to Judar doing them just because he didn’t want to have differing opinions. “It’s not like it made any difference,” he said. “You got on Sinbad’s bad side without me ever doing anything.”

“Sinbad’s goal is to unite the world. It’s the opposite of what you and I want. And besides, the fact that even Musta’sim is a part of the Seven Seas Alliance now is unnerving.”

“So he really is just like Kouen,” Judar said. “Well, whatever. This place is as stuffy as ever. I’m gonna go out for awhile.”

Many restaurants stayed open long past sundown, lit only by paper lanterns and table candles. He entered one and noticed immediately that a table was occupied with foreigners - they burst into laughter at something and then took notice of Judar, and he noticed when they met eyes that Sinbad was among them.

“Hey, it’s the stupid king from earlier,” he said, looking down on him for a change. “Not gonna run home quite yet, are you?”

Sinbad’s eyes bore into him in an unsettling way, as if he understood something Judar didn’t, before he smiled widely. “Did you come for a drink? Join us - no one’s enemies here.”

“What’s up with the sudden buddy-buddy attitude? It’s kinda creeping me out.”

Sinbad pulled a chair up. “Now, now. Don’t be like that. Enjoy yourself. Emperor Hakuryuu’s enthronement is a joyous occasion, after all.

The men on either side of Sinbad were obviously staring daggers in his direction. Judar shrugged and sat with them. What was the worst that could happen, Hakuryuu getting mad at him? 

Besides, he was curious. Sinbad obviously wanted something from him. His rukh, as much as he tried to hide it, was full of greed and purpose.

Sinbad tried asking him some typical getting-to-know him questions. Judar responded with lies. Today he was born and raised in Kou’s capital and had known Hakuryuu since childhood. Sinbad didn’t buy it - he already knew during his meeting with Hakuryuu that Judar was definitely, absolutely a siren - but didn’t argue and instead asked Judar to elaborate until it was difficult to continue the lie, because he just didn’t have a good idea of what human children did.

When Sinbad was content that Judar’s story was completely contradictory he just laughed it off. “I do love a good story,” he said with a smile and Judar suddenly felt like he was too close.

Lately, everyone but Hakuryuu kept their distance from Judar even when they spoke because they were afraid. There was no trace of that fear on Sinbad’s face. Instead he gestured widely and bumped shoulders with Judar as he spoke. It was a small table, sure, but not _that_ small. The watchful gaze of Sinbad’s retainers told him that it wasn’t just in his head, either.

Sinbad had to be some kind of idiot if he thought touching shoulders with Judar would help him in what he was trying to accomplish. If Yamraiha ever told him about sirens, he clearly didn’t take what she said seriously.

Judar kept his guard up, but Sindria’s king was a very charismatic man in a way that Hakuryuu was not, and some of his stories were very interesting. He was sure that Sinbad was trying to butter him up to ask some sort of outrageous trade deal.

Of course, he didn’t have the power to accept a deal even if Sinbad offered him one. He didn’t have an official military rank, much less an advisory position, so why would Hakuryuu let him make governmental decisions? He wasn’t even human. It was strange that Sinbad let a siren become his general, really. Judar wouldn’t be surprised if the siren Yamraiha was just using Sinbad to kill some time.

And Judar hadn’t forgotten that he sort of suggested to Hakuryuu after Kouen’s execution that they conquer Sindria. None of them knew it yet, but Judar would become their enemy.

It was strange being face to face with their king. Before he’d only had a fuzzy image of palm trees in mind when he suggest destroying it. Now, listening to stories of grand festivals and happy refugees, he could add much more to that picture.

He felt no animosity towards Sinbad. In fact, he was the kind of person that Judar didn’t mind spending time with. That didn’t mean he’d go back on his word, though. A man as powerful as Sinbad would look just as good on his knees as on a throne.

Even if he was the strongest human in the world, he was still human. 

“By the way, Judar,” Sinbad said just as they were leaving, “how old are you?”

“Twenty… two now, I guess.” He never really thought about when his birthday was, seems as the only reason he ever knew he was a year older was Scheherazade telling him. Her ability to keep track of time even at the bottom of the sea was pretty impressive. Useless, but impressive. “Why?”

“I was just wondering. Looks can be deceiving, after all. Have you married?”

“…?”

Sinbad laughed Judar’s confused expression off. “Never mind. I can tell by your face that you’ve never given it any thought.” He continued walking with Judar in the direction of the palace.

“You’re not leaving tonight?”

“No, I’ll leave tomorrow.”

“If you’re thinking to catch Hakuryuu off guard in the morning to try negotiating again, don’t bother. He’s a real morning person.”

“No need to treat me like a crook!”

“You are a crook. There’s no other way you’d be the leader of the Seven Seas Alliance.”

That piqued Sinbad’s interest. “Why do you say so?”

“Well… you just look like one!”

Sinbad smiled. He kept his eyes on Judar as they spoke, eyes occasionally drawn away only by the bright displays on the side of the road claiming a shop that was closed for the evening sold scales, and bid him goodnight as a retainer of his tugged at his shoulder and pointed in the direction of their hotel.

The next day Sinbad left just as he said he would and things returned to how they’d been before the war. Judar didn’t understand what Sinbad had been trying to accomplish, or if he succeeded in whatever his goal was.

Hakuryuu was busy, but he was busy before. He did occasionally make time to go to the city with Judar or spend time in a courtyard together, though.

Thanks to the number of war veterans in Rakushou, Hakuryuu was able to have a suitable prosthetic arm made. It didn't help much when it came to tasks like tying his hair up but Hakuryuu claimed it was helpful for his balance and cooking.

“You know, it might be useful in more ways than just that,” Judar said as he ran a finger over its polished surface. “You might be able to get a magoi flow to go through it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I know it’s possible ‘cause I have to do it with my legs. Maybe if you practice real hard you can do it too. Though probably not to the same degree…”

“Speaking of magic,” Hakuryuu said and dread ran down Judar’s spine at the thought of more boring magic practice, “have you made any progress on what I told you to look into?”

“No.”

Hakuryuu frowned. “You can’t become complacent just because we won the war.”

“Yeah, yeah. I know. I’ll get to it today. Don’t expect much of the healing magic, though. It’s pretty weird - almost seems to run in bloodlines instead of being easy for everyone to learn.”

“That’s fine. It would be useful but it isn’t necessary.”

“Oh yeah,” Judar said, “what did you think of what Sinbad said? About the sirens, I mean.”

“I wondered about it while I was studying there,” Hakuryuu said. “There were many books on magic in the archives. I even saw that woman, Yamraiha, many times. Though I never spoke with her.”

“Kinda amazing that you didn’t even wonder. She wears shells of all things. What’s more stereotypically siren than that?”

“It’s a tropical island. I just assumed it was some strange Sindrian fashion trend.”

“It probably is. That or a shallow water trend.”

Hakuryuu faltered and Judar could tell that he was thinking about Musta’sim’s colony. He didn’t accuse Judar of hypocrisy like he should have.

Judar smiled, rubbed Hakuryuu’s head to mess up his hair, and left. 

He knew Hakuryuu. He’d prefer Judar spent the time working on his magic instead of trying to smooth over something that was wrong from every angle.

The first thing Judar had to do was go back to the library and read up on human biology. No matter how many times he read and reread medical descriptions it failed to click in his mind what exactly he was supposed to be imagining. Drawings of the same organ often varied to an extreme degree between scrolls and he had no idea what size they were really supposed to be.

Judar wondered why he didn’t take the chance on the battlefield to dissect a few bodies. Of course, he could always kill someone as an example. That would be the easiest way. It just wasn’t really what he wanted to do.

Killing willful soldiers on the battlefield was one thing. Killing a colony of sirens who might’ve never died if he didn’t was another thing. And killing regular humans, who only had a short time to live their lives and become happy, was another. He didn’t like them, of course. He might have even hated those people who managed it in such a short amount of time. But it wasn’t like he wanted to kill them on sight or anything.

Any moral opposition he had was easily pushed to the back of his head if he was determined enough. But he didn’t feel the need to become determined yet.

It’d be more fun if he could figure it out another way. Hakuryuu was pretty knowledgeable so maybe it was as easy as asking. Though he doubted that even Hakuryuu would know how to translate where an organ sat to thousands of consecutive magical formulas, it would at least be fun to see him try.

Judar wasn’t surprised when Hakuryuu just stared.

“Come on, Hakuryuu. It’s easy for you because you’re human. All the diagrams on what it’s supposed to look like inside look more like spilled ink half the time. You have to explain these things to me!”

Hakuryuu shook his head. “How can you look and act so human, then turn around and say things like that?”

“I act human?”

“How do you think you’d be able to trick people into thinking you were otherwise?”

“I get what you’re saying,” Judar said, “but I don’t act _human,_ you know? Humans are more… more…”

“More…?” Hakuryuu prompted.

“Uh… you know, human!”

“See? You act perfectly human. Aside from not knowing anything about humans, that is.”

“Just tell me what I need to know,” Judar complained. 

Hakuryuu tried to explain anatomy to the best of his ability. It was clear that it was a subject he’d studied extensively alongside swordsmanship and medical documents, as he was very knowledgeable - though some of that knowledge was likely due to the scrolls he kept checking for reference. Judar wondered if it was something all princes learned or if it was just something he picked up during one of his sister’s trips away when he was alone with no company but scrolls for months at a time.

Hakuryuu’s explanations didn’t make much more sense than the scrolls even if he tried saying it several different ways. Worse, the amount of organs was staggering. Judar wasn’t entirely certain which he had and which he didn’t. With the magic he was currently using, all he did was change structures that already existed inside him. The most complicated magic was for legs, and even that couldn’t kill him if cast wrong - at worst, he’d be paralyzed until he either cast it right or got rid of it.

“Makes me wonder how Gyokuen did it,” Judar said. “Probably used someone else to practice on, really.”

“Someone else… Another siren, or humans?”

“Either would work, I think. It’d be the same thing on humans but backwards.”

“Since taking the throne, I’ve been informed that Kouen and Koumei were performing human experimentation,” Hakuryuu said.

“Whoa, seriously?”

“Yes. I wouldn’t be surprised if their research covered similar topics. I haven’t been to the facility yet, but if you think it would be of use…”

“I wanna see it!” Judar said and it was settled.

Kouen’s ex-subordinates were brought from prison to show them the location of the facility. It was darker and larger than Judar imagined.

“To think that there were caves below Rakushou,” Judar said. “I’ve never been in one.”

“Me neither,” Hakuryuu said. They were guided through and shown the results of the experiments. A siren was preserved but long dead and there was no sign that Kouen knew of their relation to magic as Sinbad did.

Rather than magic, the experiments tended towards combining humans with other creatures and attempts to elongate natural lifespans and reanimate corpses. As of yet they were fairly unsuccessful. 

It was also the place that the worst criminals, those who made attempts on the lives of the imperial family, were kept for the sake of experimentation.

“You can use one of them for what you need to do,” Hakuryuu said.

“Really?” Judar asked as he eyed a nearly lifeless man. He’d done no worse than Hakuryuu, surely. He was just unlucky in that his attempt was unsuccessful.

“It isn’t as if they’re getting much out of life here anyway.”

The first few times Judar tried to give humans gills he accidentally killed them by smothering their lungs. Then he gave up and tried making an ugly scaleless tail instead which seemed to work until he stopped exerting his magoi and the human returned to nearly its original position.

He gave up sooner than later.

“It’s not what Gyokuen was using,” he told Hakuryuu. “I don’t know what she was doing, but it changed the form of her body completely.”

“That’s not what yours does?”

“No. It’s hard to explain, okay?”

Hakuryuu waited patiently for him to figure out how to say it.

“It’s like… I’m just stretching everything until it works like a humans does. Like my lungs - I can do that with strength and life magic and they work just fine, but Yunan said our lungs are smaller than a human’s. So they’re stronger from my magic but not real human lungs.”

Hakuryuu nodded.

“But for them to still work so well under the isolation barrier like hers did, they’d have to be human lungs for real.” He sighed in exasperation. “I don’t know what she did at all.”

“You’re a great magician, you’ll figure it out,” Hakuryuu said. He seemed to get a kick out of Judar’s frustration.

“Let’s work on your so-called magic instead,” Judar said. “How’s it been going?”

“Before sending the army back to their supply bases I checked for wounds,” he said. “With mild success.”

“How many could you find?”

“Fifteen or so. However, that’s out the hundreds I looked over. Of course I didn’t have time to examine all of them…”

“Any luck on your arm?”

Hakuryuu held it up. He was lucky to still have his left elbow intact, allowing for some mobility. “No,” he said. “It’s strange. Even if I feel like I’m moving the fingers they don’t move at all.”

“Probably because it’s wood.”

“Obviously,” Hakuryuu said as he looked at the immobile wooden fingers. “But it feels to me as if they’re moving. And I’m not sure how magoi should ever flow through there if it isn’t now.”

Judar pushed at a wooden joint experimentally. The finger slid down with effort. It wasn’t nearly as pliable as a hand of flesh. “Maybe you just need to try harder.”

Hakuryuu rolled his eyes. “I don’t know why I bother sometimes. Maybe I should write to the Yambala tribe after all. Or I could see about a diplomatic visit to Reim and see them at the colosseum…”

“Reim, huh? I kinda want to go.”

“To… conquer it?” Hakuryuu asked. Judar smiled, happy that he understood.

“Yeah! Don’t you think it would be fun? It’d give us something to do, at least. Reim isn’t gonna last forever - it’s the weakest country left. Someone’s gotta conquer it and it’s either gonna us or the Seven Seas Alliance. For all we know they had some kind of deal with Kouen.”

“It isn’t impossible,” Hakuryuu said. “And it would be in our best interest to get on their good side either way.”

“Should be easy enough,” Judar said. “Just say you didn’t agree with a single thing Kouen did if they hate him. You killed him, they have to believe you.”

“That’s not really how politics work. But I will try to meet with Reim’s emperor.”


	20. Chapter 20

A reply wasn’t expected from Reim’s emperor for a long time. Humans were good at many things, but getting a letter across the world was not one of their strengths. Hakuryuu said it’d take months to get there and months for a reply to arrive.

“Why don’t we just go there in person?” Judar asked.

“You really can’t think of a reason why teleporting straight to the palace doors would be a bad idea?” Hakuryuu asked. “An army could easily do the same. They’d never listen to us if we did that.”

“Oh, right,” Judar said. “But it _would_ be more fun that way.”

Hakuryuu rolled his eyes.

In general, Hakuryuu took to his new position well.

With his revenge accomplished and Judar by his side, he could do anything now. Except… he didn’t really want to do anything, so he mostly just micromanaged the empire from the throne.

He wasn’t moping like before or anything. Judar wasn’t worried that he’d take his life at all. He just didn’t have the spark of defiance in his eyes that’d captivated Judar so much in the first place now.

At first he’d been sure that he’d leave Hakuryuu the second something like happened, but he never felt like it. The opposite was what happened.

He wanted to bring that spark back, no matter what it took.

If it was burning Reim and Sindria to the ground, then so be it. He was enjoying himself far too much to let it end now.

\---

It took a dream about the life of one of the sirens from Musta’sim, an influence from their rukh living in his body, no doubt, for Judar to realize what he should be doing. He felt like an idiot upon waking.

He could use their memories. They were a colony of magicians just the same as his own and if they openly communicated with humans, surely they had just as much knowledge of how to walk on land as Yunan.

Judar slipped out of the the palace after breakfast by using a transfer circle to reach the beach. It was much colder than the palace thanks to the late season, but he didn’t want to look through his mass of stolen rukh somewhere that others might bother him. Last time was ugly. It was something even Hakuryuu didn’t need to see.

A year ago he cleared the area of trees to practice magic to kill Hakuryuu’s mother, but it wasn’t nearly as tidy as he remembered. Though brown from the cold, it was filled with grasses and shrubs. It was annoying since a few had sharp thorns that caught on his clothes and threatened to tear. Silk never was very sturdy.

It was uncomfortable with the cold and thorns, but it was better than in the palace. It’d do.

His pulse sped up just knowing what was coming. He drew his staff across the hard ground for a moment. If he hadn’t killed them, he wouldn’t be able to do this.

It was a stupid thing to be using their souls for after all this time, but if it meant he could have a body more fitting for living on land, he’d do it.

As soon as he tried to look into the rukh his head felt like it would split in two. His hands shot to hold his temples instinctively. Images flashed through his head one after another, too fast to understand but too close to ignore.

Happy things - family, friends, inventions. Lovers exchanging scales and a whole underwater school’s love for magic itself. The images came all at once. It took time to separate the images into the order they belonged in, but all the sorting in the world wouldn’t calm the pain in his head.

What he needed this time was memories. They were a group of hundreds, maybe even thousands of sirens. One of them had to have the answer he was looking for. He focused on a single strain of rukh and brought it to the front of his mind, then tossed it away when it ended in its death. Again and again, he pulled pieces of the rukh to look into the most private memories of sirens he’d never met.

Children younger than himself struggled no more in death than they had in life, already reunited with their parents. Occasionally there was a voice that echoed words of loss, a feeling like missing someone, and Judar could see clearly that he hadn’t gotten them all. Some must have been just far enough from the colony for his magic to miss them. If that was the case, it was obvious how Yamraiha figured out what happened so fast. 

It wasn’t just the sirens swimming around outside he missed, either. Of course many of the sirens would be on the land, living as humans. Maybe they weren’t even committed to it but treating it as a vacation where they would return to the warm sea at sundown.

The memories of land he saw were all very consistent with the little he’d seen of Musta’sim. When he reached a siren who stayed for a long time, he focused harder to slow it down, then tried returning to the sea of its memories.

The shining rukh opened to memories of scenes dyed only in blues and greens. Unlike his own deep sea colony, Musta’sim’s sirens enjoyed the light of the sun and were filled with towers of kelp reaching as high as the eye could see. The surrounding sea was full of sharks but the sirens payed them no mind - only one who could use magic could pass through their barriers. Children were urged to watch the sharks and rays only from the safety of within, as it was difficult to tell how strong their borg would be at such a young age.

It was boring. He didn’t think they ever left the water for the first three hundred years recorded on their rukh. He let it speed up again until he could see the sun.

After three hundred years the siren was fed up with their kelp cage. They used a spell that seemed to be taught in that strange stone school and were at once off to the human country of Musta’sim.

Judar viewed the memory of the spell several times before concluding it was the same as what he was using. Perhaps a colony of dead sirens wasn’t the best place to look for those who permanently changed themselves to walk on land. Really, Yamraiha was a much better bet if he was looking for information.

Or… maybe going to Reim was what he really needed to do after all. If Titus lived, Reim was where they’d meet again. Judar had the feeling Scheherazade was much more likely to give a detailed explanation of the different types of magic to be used on land to Titus.

Just one siren’s memory left him feeling like he’d been dreaming for hours. His shivering didn’t help his resolve to stay in the cold watching a bunch of boring memories of sharks and kelp, either. Judar returned to the palace, irritated at how difficult this was turning out to be. He _knew_ the magic was out there. It was just out of reach. 

He felt like a child again, remembering how Scheherazade often sheltered him and the others by hiding truths of the human world until she saw fit to use them as a lesson. He knew the sirens in the rukh weren’t doing it purposefully - they had no purpose now, they were dead - but it didn’t make him any less irritated.

Judar transferred to the palace and headed to the throne room with his arms crossed for warmth, glaring at all the officials’ layered robes and coats as he passed.

The inner palace was much warmer thanks to the ever burning incense near the entrance. Judar sighed in relief - it was a huge improvement, but he could still see his exhaled breath. The first time Judar saw his breath he couldn’t stop blowing it around in amazement. Now that it’d been constantly visible for nearly a month he was used to it.

On the other side of the inner palace’s long hall, Hakuryuu was hearing an advisor out, but he didn’t look all too convinced of whatever he was saying. Judar moved closer to listen in out of curiosity. Often the officials were scared of him and steadfastly refused to speak in more than small talk in his presence until Hakuryuu expressed disdain, but this one didn’t react.

That didn’t happen much anymore. He probably just didn’t notice Judar behind him.

“It’s for the sake of the country,” the advisor was saying. “With the other princes exiled, it would be a problem if something were to happen to Your Highness…”

“You hardly need to worry about that,” Hakuryuu said. “Nothing will happen to me. Or are you implying that something will?”

“I, I… of course not, Your Majesty. Such insolence would undoubtedly not be tolerated.”

Hakuryuu frowned pointedly as the official bowed a few times to save face. His eyes flicked to Judar for the first time since he entered and he motioned for the advisor to stop bowing and stand.

“I will not marry a woman I know nothing about to coerce her into having my child. Do not bother me about this again.”

“And what of the concubines, Your Majesty?”

Hakuryuu sighed. “They have nowhere else to go. Please continue treating them with courtesy.”

Judar scowled. Wasn’t it a bit early to be bothering Hakuryuu about an heir? He only needed an heir before he died. Hakuryuu was right to be annoyed - an advisor should have more faith in his king.

When the advisor bowed last time and turned to leave, he nearly fell over his own robes in fright at the sight of Judar before apologizing and scurrying off.

“Not very confident in you, is he?”

“Within reason,” Hakuryuu said. “It isn’t strange to be married by my age.”

Judar’s frown deepend.

“Are you jealous?” Hakuryuu asked, amused. “I haven’t seen you look so angry in a long time.”

“I’m not jealous. I just don’t think you should get married.”

“I get the feeling that you would be upset if I visited the concubines as well. That would be called ‘jealousy.’”

Judar gritted his teeth and looked away. Hakuryuu saying it in such a matter-of-fact voice pissed him off just as much of the thought of him with another human did. They’d always have something Judar didn’t and Hakuryuu knew that perfectly well.

Judar was brought out of his thoughts by Hakuryuu’s voice. “I wasn’t being serious,” he said. “Sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing?” Judar grumbled. He felt like he was being made fun of. “Even if you got married to some women they’d stab you in the back for spending all your time working. You’d be a terrible husband.”

“…You’re right. It wouldn’t be fair to her. There’s no woman I would like to marry, either. And I have no interest in spending time with the previous emperor’s concubines.”

“Right…”

Another official approached and bowed to Hakuryuu. “I’ll see you later,” he said to Judar and went back to his duties.

Hakuryuu took his job seriously. He let Judar chat with him during the day, but never for long. He’d just taken the throne and needed to put his full attention into the country while it stabilized.

Judar was sure that his excuse would change once the country was stabilized and he’d find another reason to work all day. That was just the way he was. Judar wished he’d give it a break for a few hours around lunch at the very least, but even the couple minutes they could talk if Judar visited him was normally enough to improve his mood.

Normally.

With nothing left to do, Judar left the warm inner palace. Now that everyone knew he was a magician he could use magic whenever he wanted, but his hands would get cold enough casting fire magic that it wouldn’t be worth it. Plus, he couldn’t guarantee that he wouldn’t burn down part of the palace trying to warm himself up. Fire magic wasn’t one of his strengths.

It was probably safe to call it winter by now. It wasn’t bad, but it was very cold. The spell he had used to use to fix his body temperature in the deep sea didn’t work on his legs and he couldn’t get comfortable even when he walked around to warm up.

He spent some time wandering around in the city proper before giving up and returning to the palace shivering. Despite the sunshine, it got colder by the minute. Judar took a hot bath upon returning but even the repetitive motion of combing scented oil into his hair failed to relax him.

Judar unlocked Hakuryuu’s door - Hakuryuu finally had a second key made for him - and stretched across the bed. After a few minutes his wet hair became unbearable and he began to braid it.

He must have still looked annoyed, as when Hakuryuu returned he greeted him with an unsure voice. “Hello.”

“Hey,” Judar mumbled back.

“You’re here early.”

“Too damn cold to do anything,” Judar said. “It’s a lot easier to make water warm than the air, you know that?” Never mind that he spent hours looking into the rukh of screaming sirens before hearing about Hakuryuu’s eventual need to take a wife.

Not that he was sulking or anything.

Hakuryuu put his hand on Judar’s back and he was sure Hakuryuu was going to push him to the side so he could sit beside him, but he didn’t. Unsure as it was, he moved his hand slightly down Judar’s back.

Hakuryuu was getting good at these things. Judar felt himself relax into his touch. Even though he said Hakuryuu would be a terrible husband before, he really thought he’d be a good one. He’d just gotten caught up trying to make sure that Hakuryuu absolutely wouldn’t consider the advisor’s words.

…Admittedly, Judar would not mind marrying Hakuryuu if it were at all possible. He wouldn’t tell Hakuryuu that, of course. He’d probably misunderstand and start treating him like a human woman or something.

Human marriage wasn’t the same as it was for sirens. A siren’s exchange of scales was a bond spanning thousands of years. A human marriage was a simple affair in comparison - it wasn’t eternal, and it didn’t have much to do with love. It was nothing more than a bond of convenience.

So if it were convenient for him to be married to Hakuryuu in the human meaning of the word, he’d do it.

Hakuryuu got changed while Judar continued braiding his hair. It really was neater when he braided it by hand instead of with magic. Hakuryuu’s wooden arm did help him change clothes faster, Judar noticed. Though he still wasn’t as fast at such tasks as he was before losing the arm.

Once he finished braiding, Judar stretched across the bed. Hakuryuu joined him soon after and Judar moved close and put an arm around Hakuryuu’s waist. He was warm, as usual, but felt especially nice after a day of biting cold. As always, being curled up against Hakuryuu’s chest was the most comfortable place in the whole palace.

“What all did you do today?” Hakuryuu asked. “You looked really cold earlier.”

“Oh, right.” Judar pulled away a little to talk. “I was working on finding another kind of spell for making a human body,” he said.

“Out in the cold?”

“Yeah.”

Judar didn’t offer an explanation and Hakuryuu didn’t ask. He was comfortable how he was, but he didn’t want it to weigh on his mind a moment longer. So he decided to ask.

“Are you going to get married one day?”

Hakuryuu sighed. “Like I said before—”

“You said you don’t want to get married _now,_ ” Judar interrupted. He butted his head against Hakuryuu’s chest once again. 

He could tell by Hakuryuu’s rukh that he wasn’t very impressed with Judar for bringing it up again. Call him nosy, but he wanted to know. Anything that was Hakuryuu’s business was pretty much his anyway.

“You’re emperor. You could have anyone you wanted. So if there’s someone you want, you might as well,” Judar said. He meant for it to come out lighthearted, but even he could hear the annoyance in his voice as he spoke.

“Do you understand exactly what marriage is?” Hakuryuu asked.

“Yeah. It means you can get something out of being with someone else.”

“That’s not exactly it,” Hakuryuu said. “To politicians it’s about heirs, first and foremost. That’s why he was bothering me about it.”

“I know that.”

“To most people, it’s about love.”

“…I know that, too. We have something similar. Don’t treat me like an idiot.” 

“What exactly do you want me to do? Never take a wife? Never touch a woman? It would create problems for me to never have an heir.”

“I can take care of all of that,” Judar said. “I can do anything they could do.” 

“But that’s not what you want to do, is it?” Hakuryuu asked. He pulled away to meet Judar’s eyes. “You already said you weren’t serious.”

“It’s not what you want either, right? Can’t your sister have an heir instead? Or Kougyoku?”

“I don’t want my brothers’ blood and name to end with me,” Hakuryuu said.

“But if it were just you.”

“If it were just me, I might be happy to never think of it again.”

Judar smiled. 

“I think that I like you too much,” Hakuryuu said and sighed. “I don’t want to marry. Not now and not in the future.”

From his place against his chest, he could feel Hakuryuu’s quickening heartbeat easily at admitting such a private thing.

Anyone would feel happy to be told that. 

“Then you shouldn’t marry,” Judar said. “And it isn’t as if your sister doesn’t share your brothers’ blood.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

He kissed Hakuryuu fondly. His bad mood lifted easily, and judging by his rukh Hakuryuu was coming around too. “Your advisors are stupid,” he said. “You need new ones.”

“That’s my decision to make,” Hakuryuu said. “But he would be better off watching his mouth.”

\---

Morning was painfully cold. Hakuryuu woke him like usual with his arm at the ready.

He blinked.

Never mind. Not like normal. Hakuryuu was excited about something. He was trying not to smile obviously, but his rukh was just as bad at keeping secrets as always.

Curious, Judar sat up. Hakuryuu pushed his prosthesis onto Judar’s hands.

“What?”

“Tie it on,” Hakuryuu said. “Like you do every morning.”

“No, not that,” Judar said. He tied the arm to Hakuryuu slowly, carefully. When he tried doing it quickly so he could go back to sleep he always messed up and had to do it over. “Tell me what you’re excited about.”

Hakuryuu shifted. “It’s your first winter on land, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s snowing.”

“Huh…”

Hakuryuu covered his mouth to laugh a little at Judar’s blank expression. He really was a morning person. “Don’t tell me you don’t remember what snow is.”

“O-of course I do! It’s like rain but hot.”

That was even funnier to him. Judar left his hand half tied, annoyed. He wrapped a quilt around his shoulders like a cape to protect from the cold and walked over to the window to see what the fuss was.

White rain floated down, swaying in the wind. That was about what he expected. The newly white courtyard was definitely weird, though.

It was his first time seeing the human world in a single color. Too much like the sea, he immediately disliked it.

“Why don’t you go outside?” Hakuryuu asked once he noticed Judar’s sour expression. He didn’t look like he believed for a second that Judar disliked it.

“Because it’s cold. And early.”

“Alright. But it might melt before you wake up again, and then you’ll never get the chance to feel it.”

He did have a point. 

Judar’s dislike didn’t last long outside.

The snow tickled his nose as it fell and stuck to spiderwebs. He was too curious to shun it. He reached down to touch it and was met with a slushy coldness. The contrast between the unpleasant texture and its fluffy appearance was fun. Even more fun was the fact that he could scoop it up and keep it in his hands. It was malleable like mud but melted into nothing if he tried to carry it too far.

No one was as impressed with it as he was, but Hakuryuu was at least amused by his interest until he had to leave to get to work. To make up for everyone else’s lack of enthusiasm, Judar made footprints in the snow in every courtyard, occasionally throwing a ball of it inside the palace at whoever might be in the halls to see how much faster it would melt. He always missed. Aiming wasn’t his strong suit.

His feet nearly froze off, but it was pretty fun. Towards noon the snow fell harder and harder, moving in waves more reminiscent of the ocean’s current than rain. Scrolls did a poor job of describing the strange way that snow moved and felt. He sneezed as he retreated back inside. Much like the rain, snow made him sneeze.

The snow stayed on the ground for all of a week before disappearing in a damp mess. Judar wasn’t all too surprised to wake up to find it completely gone one day. He was already used to the fast pace of the human world.

Though Judar had been led to believe spring would begin as soon as the snow melted, it was much slower to come. Once the snow melted it was as if it never existed, and winter continued as if its grey world had never been interrupted by white.

Judar figured it was as good of a time as any to try getting information out of Musta’sim’s sirens. 

He left for the same seaside cliffs he always used to practice and sat down on the cold ground, and cut a few branches to burn. He heard that wood was what burnt under clay stoves and was glad to see it was just as warm without the clay stove part. All he had to do was not set the trees on fire.

Judar tried looking through the memories of several sirens, but as usual, the headache that came with it quickly made it too irritating to be fruitful. He gave up when his shivering became louder than the cackling of the fire and went back to the palace.

He tried every snowless day, never making any progress. After a week of always seeing him freezing, Hakuryuu told him to buy a proper coat. So he did. A coat of some kind of fur he forgot the name of instantly after buying. It was soft, though, and reasonably warm. But it was also the kind of thing that looked like it’d burn easily so he had to stay farther from the fire while he worked, so it cancelled out and became useless other than keeping Hakuryuu from nagging at him.

Then, just as the snow began to fall anew and Judar was ready to go back to the palace for the day, he found it. A siren whose life spanned many years on land, who had ignored the warnings of their family to have some fun with the short-lived but ever changing humans on the other side of the coast.

The siren had been performing experiments in the sea, based on nothing more than curiosity and a need to know what the human world was like, and upon coming to the surface was already ready to create a convincingly human form. Judar studied it as much as he could from the vague image in his mind. It was consistent with what he’d seen of Hakuryuu’s body.

Excitement bubbled up in his chest. It took weeks to find, but there was someone useful in there after all. He listened to the thoughts of the siren as they cast the spell again, doing his best to memorize the details. Then so as to not forget who had the answer he’d been searching so hard for, Judar allowed the rest of the siren’s life to flash behind his eyes.

The siren took the form of a young man and set off into a field of washed-out purple flowers and grasses. They didn’t like the way grass scratched their new legs - despite making a fully convincing human form, it was their first time out of the sea - and tried running through the grass to escape the feeling.

A small wooden cabin not five miles from the sea was the first sign of civilization the siren found. Naive as they were, they walked up and knocked without thinking.

“Hello,” the siren greeted the woman who answered. “I’ve grown tired from walking. Could I rest here for the night?”

She slammed the door in his face, bolting it loudly. Judar laughed.

The siren survived, somehow, and spent many years on the surface observing the curiosities that were humans. They were fascinated by their differences and even more fascinated by their similarities, and kept a faded scroll to record various spells they thought of and practiced in the night.

Judar wondered where that scroll was now.

Hundreds of years passed like days, and everyone the siren met eventually died. They used their human-like body several times with passing fancies but never regarded them as much more than a curiosity.

Then the famous siren hunts of Musta’sim began.

It turned out that hundreds of sirens lived in each city, observing and taking notes on humans unbeknownst to each other, making friends and falling in love. The price of scales skyrocketed and became an emblem of wealth like no other. The country’s greatest generals were awarded armor of scales, brightly shining trophies in the colors of their country.

It was a bit disturbing to watch. The siren certainly felt disturbed as their rukh was forced to recount the events. Because of their sufficiently humanoid body, they were spared the worst of the persecution. No one found them out but the effects were substantial.

After a few years of trying to help every siren they found return to the sea, they returned as well.

Judar got bored of watching the siren help set up barriers around their colony and stretched, pushing the siren’s rukh back away from his mind. What a depressing story. It was easy to forget that such a thing could still happen to him for how open he was about being a magician, but it was only thanks to the rumors of the Torran tribe’s magical abilities that allowed him to do it.

His hair wet from melted snow, he left to the palace to take a bath before testing his findings.

The underground research facility was the same as last time he entered and the prisoners didn’t look up when he knocked at the bars to get their attention.

He shrugged. If they weren’t going to react to anything, they probably wouldn’t care too much no matter what he did.

With a spell to test, it was a more successful trip than last time. Or rather, the survival rate was much higher. Unfortunately, after trying the spell on five prisoners, he was exhausted.

That was the real problem. Yunan warned him long ago - it was the most complicated spell of them all, requiring the same amount of magoi to create human legs for a year as it did to create a functional human body for a day. The sickly rukh of the other prisoners wasn’t much help for his magic, either, and soon he had to leave to rest.

Unless he figured out the spell Gyokuen was using, he’d have to limit use of it to when he needed it when he figured it out. Otherwise it would be a colossal waste of magoi. Really, it was no wonder that Gyokuen made another spell. No siren could have a human male’s child without dying from magoi loss with the method he found in the rukh.

Not that any of that mattered to him. It was just that knowing who to look for to find the more efficient spell would make it much easier. His best bet was finding another half-siren’s parents.

Judar sighed. Back to square one again. To find a half-siren meant finding another siren that was stupid enough to fall in love with a human like Scheherazade, or greedy enough to use a royal human as a means to a goal like Gyokuen. What kind of goal, he still had no idea. He had no idea where to start in figuring out what Gyokuen was trying to accomplish, and lacked the motivation now that she was dead to even bother trying.

It snowed several more times, melting soon after, and still nothing became green. Judar failed to make any progress looking through the rukh or the imperial archives for a more effective spell, and progress on the prisoners was slow when he was unwilling to waste a huge mass of magoi on them.

“Is winter always this long?” Judar asked Hakuryuu. When in doubt, Hakuryuu nearly always had the answer. And if he didn’t he’d change the subject and look it up later, then report his findings as if he knew the answer all along.

This time he didn’t need to look it up. “Yes,” he said. “In Rakushou, at least. But places like Sindria don’t have a winter at all.”

“What’s the point of winter, anyway?”

Hakuryuu took a moment to think. “I don’t think it has a point… It’s just something that happens.”

“But not in Sindria?”

“Yes. Not in Sindria.”

Judar left feeling more confused about weather than before he asked. Hakuryuu, as usual, looked it up in the evening. He hated not knowing the answer to things.

“The sun shines longer each day in Sindria,” Hakuryuu informed him. “And there are less clouds for most of the year, so the sun warms the ground for longer.”

“Oh. That makes sense.”

Hakuryuu smiled triumphantly. Eager to prove himself as always, Judar appreciated how much of a know-it-all Hakuryuu could be for how much time it saved Judar looking things up. He probably would’ve never bothered with something as pointless as looking up weather patterns, though. 

“When’s the emperor of Reim gonna respond, anyway?” Judar asked. “It feels like it’s been forever.”

“His reply will probably come in spring,” Hakuryuu said. He didn’t comment on the fact that he’d undoubtedly already told Judar this. He was more patient than he looked. “If the emperor agrees to an audience, that is.”

“Think he will?”

“Almost certainly. Worst case scenario is that Reim will have already decided to ally with the Seven Seas Alliance and the emperor will refuse to meet with us, but I don’t think that will happen. Reim’s values line up fairly well with Kou’s.”

“With Kouen’s,” Judar corrected.

“…Yes. With Kouen’s. We can still use it to our advantage, though, depending on the political climate in Reim. Likely we won’t know what it is until we arrive.”

“Right.”

Hakuryuu’s rukh had chirped lowly, clearly unsettled, when Judar mentioned Kouen. It was pointless for him to still be regretting it as Kouen rotted into the earth, but there was no way for him to speed the process up.

Judar tucked a loose strand of Hakuryuu’s hair behind his ear. Distraction was what worked best, in his experience. “As much as I like you wearing that crown, it makes it hard to mess up your hair.”

Hakuryuu put a hand to where Judar just fixed suspiciously. Judar laughed and Hakuryuu’s rukh calmed.

When he saw Judar after a long day it mellowed out and relaxed, rims dyed a bashful pink. He used to not dare to think of seeing such a thing and yet now it happened often. Hakuryuu’s affection was no longer a novelty, and Judar didn’t tend to hold interest in things that were no longer new.

Even so, Hakuryuu continued to betray his expectations.

Hakuryuu didn’t have much free time as emperor, but Judar didn’t tire of the way he sometimes woke up to Hakuryuu’s face buried in his back in the middle of the night, comforting himself from a bad dream in the best way he had. He liked doing Hakuryuu’s hair in the mornings, too, even though he wasn’t a morning person. Of course, he also liked taking care of Hakuryuu’s human needs as often as he desired, though he still hadn’t made enough progress to do it in the same way a human could.

Neither of them brought the topic of Hakuryuu’s eventual need for an heir up and Hakuryuu continued to spend his free time only with Judar, the same as always. Even on the days they annoyed each other it always fizzled out by morning.

Hakuryuu hadn’t been lying when he said that night that he liked him too much. Judar could see from his rukh that Hakuryuu was falling in love with him. He was the only person that Hakuryuu trusted, and when he had the time, he was the only person Hakuryuu sought out.

Hakuryuu was depending on Judar to be his reason to live. Without him, he had nothing to live for. So it was natural that he’d fall in love with all he had left.

He was happy with that when Hakuryuu said it. But he’d be happier if Hakuryuu wanted to fight by his side again. Any human could exchange sweet words with another, but only a siren like Judar could fight and win a war.

He was most useful on the battlefield. It was only natural that he’d seek out another. The battlefields of Reim, Sindria… he wanted to see them all with Hakuryuu.


	21. Chapter 21

The scenery began to green shortly after the last snow melted. The newly warm air gave life to plants in a way that the winter sun alone failed to do, and before long the hundreds of trees visible from the palace towers were covered in small pink blooms. Spring was the last season that Judar had never before seen. After it, the human would would begin to repeat itself.

The reply from Reim’s emperor arrived once the trees were in full bloom. Hakuryuu showed him after reading it over.

“He approved a meeting with some permanent staff as well as himself, since Reim’s emperor is nothing more than an elected body. This is the best outcome for us,” Hakuryuu said. “It seems that rumors of your power have reached Reim as well, since the invitation is extended to ‘the High Priest of the Kou Empire.’ I assume that means you.”

“Priest?”

“In all fairness, it’s the closest human title to magician.”

“It’s okay,” Judar said. “Kinda makes my job sound boring, though.”

“Your job _is_ boring. If it weren’t you would spend far less time bothering me while I’m trying to get work done.”

“Yeah, yeah. So when are we going?”

Hakuryuu rolled the letter back up. “At our nearest convenience. Do you think that you could cross the ocean between continents using your transfer magic?”

“No problem,” he said. “It probably wouldn’t work all at once, though. If we jump to Balbadd first it should be pretty easy. It’s farther from here to Musta’sim and that wasn’t too bad.”

Hakuryuu’s expression didn’t falter at the mention of Musta’sim. “Good,” he said. “It will be useful in minimizing our time away from the capital.”

“Come on,” Judar said. “Would a few months of vacation kill you?”

“A few months is plenty enough time for someone to decide to take Rakushou. You know that as well as I do.”

“No one would take it now that they know I’m here,” Judar argued.

“What of other sirens? Yamraiha of Sindria, for example?”

“Well… I guess I see what you mean. She doesn’t seem like the type, though.”

“Looks can be deceiving,” Hakuryuu said, then shook his head. “I don’t really think that anyone will attack while we’re gone. It’s just more beneficial to us if we don’t allow anyone to get the idea into their head in the first place.”

Judar nodded in begrudging agreement.

It didn’t take long for Hakuryuu to make the necessary preparations to leave. The plan was to go to Balbadd, spend a night recharging magoi and refreshing his stamina, then go straight to Remano, the capital of Reim. After that they would only spend a couple of days on diplomacy talks and meeting with the people of the Yambala tribe at the colosseum before returning to Balbadd, then finally back to Rakushou.

Though Judar initially considered looking around to see if Titus ever made it to Reim, it wasn’t looking like he’d have the time.

By the end of the week Hakuryuu finished taking care of his obligations in Rakushou and they made the jump to Balbadd, hot and overbearingly humid though it was only early spring.

“Ugh,” Judar grumbled. “This is oppressive. It wasn’t bad when we were here last, but this…” Situated near hot Sindria and mild Musta’sim, Balbadd clearly took more from its southern neighbor than northern. It also took from the sea - it was foggy not only in the morning, but throughout the day and often the entire night.

“All of the south of the empire is like this,” Hakuryuu said. He looked even more miserable in the humid heat than Judar felt, sweat running down the unscarred side of his face.

Though the staff of Balbadd’s palace weren’t expecting Hakuryuu, many recognized him on sight and kneeled to the floor. Only when Hakuryuu motioned for them to stand did they get to preparing rooms.

“I never get tired of that,” Judar said. “You could make them bow to you for hours if you wanted.”

“Why would I want that? It would only make them take longer to complete their tasks.”

“You’re no fun,” Judar said. “You’re their rightful emperor. Their knees should be sore from bowing to you.”

Hakuryuu nodded without looking convinced. Maybe he still wasn’t used to his dream being a reality. He was doing a plenty good job of being emperor, but still at times seemed to think recognition for that hard work belonged to someone else.

It was a contradiction of Hakuryuu’s that never seemed to fade - he had wanted that power enough to fight for it, and knew himself to be the rightful heir of his father’s legacy, but at the same time he didn’t truly feel he was the person who should have made it to the throne. He didn’t have to say it, since it was obvious to Judar who spent so much time with him even without words.

To the best of Judar’s knowledge there wasn’t anywhere else Hakuryuu would rather be. But he’d like it if he could find a little more enthusiasm, or if his position would become more interesting. Paperwork didn’t suit him.

The palace staff returned quickly and bowed again without meeting their eyes. Judar almost laughed at Hakuryuu’s overly annoyed face as he told them to rise. They showed both Judar and Hakuryuu large and ornate rooms that were just as damp as the city itself. Judar didn’t bother asking for a Balbadd-style room: it had already lost its foreign appeal from the time they’d already spent in Balbadd months before.

“Why do even they bother giving us two rooms?” Judar asked as he tossed his bag of clothes on Hakuryuu’s bed. “They know damn well we’re going to sleep together anyway.”

“I doubt that specific of a rumor has reached Balbadd,” Hakuryuu said. “It’s only in Rakushou that everyone is aware you have no room of your own. Really, I ought to at least assign an unused room to you.”

“What’s the point now? Too late to save your image. I bet even your sister’s heard of it now.”

Hakuryuu’s rukh reacted far before he did to the mention of his sister. It was an off-limits topic, but Judar did like to push his limits occasionally. It didn’t help that Hakuryuu always let him. “Maybe,” was all he said.

It was disappointing. Judar was hoping he would get fired up.

He never seemed to get fired up about anything lately. He didn’t need to be cheerful, but if he could at least be lively for longer than a couple hours the morning, that’d make things more interesting for the both of them. It couldn’t be fun just moping around all the time.

They were brought water for their long journey; neither bothered correcting the servants that it took only seconds. Judar tapped his short staff to the pitcher to cool it to a refreshing temperature.

“To think that humans are so advanced and yet still struggle to bring a cold glass of water to their emperor in the heat.” Hakuryuu drank it gratefully.

Judar was a bit tired from using his transfer magic across such a long distance but his body would feel better with sleep. His magoi, on the other hand, would probably have to come from the rukh of the killed colony of sirens he kept tightly locked within him. So at some point he’d have to sneak away to take it. Judar would rather Hakuryuu not see such a pathetic display, after all.

They ate outside of the palace, searching for things they couldn’t get in the capital. With the laws requiring the people to renounce Balbadd’s culture repealed, it was a much easier task than it had been the first time. Even so, Balbadd remained part of the Kou Empire - slaves from the north carried out manual labor and crowds were seas of green.

Not everyone in Rakushou had to wear green or brown clothes. It was something that was required only from people from the outer provinces who weren’t allowed to dress freely just by being transported to the capital for a task. Judar heard that the rigid social structure of Kou’s colonies was system created by Kouen and lauded as the base of Kou’s economy and the secret to its prosperity.

Judar remembered Hakuryuu saying that he disliked the system long ago. But personal distaste aside, it was the empire’s groundwork. Changing it would be difficult and require a great deal of thought. Hakuryuu had to consider the ramifications that removing slavery would have on their country before carrying out even preliminary acts of change.

He had said that he would most likely phase the system out over ten years or so by building up capital then re-designating various unskilled jobs to ex-slaves as their mandatory time dipped to four years, then three, etcetera. It was at about that time that Judar had zoned the rest of what he said out.

The problem of what to do with the empire was Hakuryuu’s, not his. Despite living in Kou, Judar didn’t feel that it had much effect on him. Laws were something that humans were meant to follow. Not sirens.

They spent a long time talking over dinner, relaxing in the much cooler night air. Or maybe the reason Hakuryuu let it last so long was because he was happy to be outside of a stuffy palace for once. The restaurant was a loud place with excited rukh and Judar was reminded of when he went to dinner with Sinbad - though really, Hakuryuu was considerably less charismatic and considerably more whiny if he drank, compared to Sinbad.

Judar realized that he’d never told Hakuryuu about that. It was insignificant but precisely the thing that Hakuryuu would be upset about Judar not telling him. Still, it wasn’t exactly the time for it.

Once they were back in the palace Hakuryuu fell asleep easily. It wasn’t difficult for Judar to slip out for a walk. He eventually found himself in the palace’s courtyard garden.

He remembered talking with Kougyoku in the same gardens a couple of months ago. She had been mourning her recently deceased husband. Judar wondered briefly if it was still bothering her.

The moonlight seemed to bring out the smell of jasmine. Judar sat on the central bench and began the painful process of wading through his stolen rukh.

It was more bearable than last time, which was more bearable than the time before. Even sirens lost their individuality after death, and something without a mind couldn’t struggle for long. It would be many more years until they faded entirely, but he was getting used to it, too.

In another year or two it’d probably be fine to allow it to mix with the rest of his magoi. Judar returned to bed with nothing more than a lingering headache.

\---

Hakuryuu was awake long enough to bathe before Judar got out of bed, but not long enough to find someone he was willing to ask to put his arm on for him. Typical Hakuryuu. Getting it cut off in the first place was easier for him than saying he needed help every now and then because of it.

He fixed Hakuryuu’s hair up and tied his prosthetic arm to his elbow. Hakuryuu thanked him as normal.

Judar watched as he got up and wandered to the window to look across the city, rukh lagging behind in a lethargic way. He still looked tired. 

Judar yawned. He expected Hakuryuu to be more energetic for their meeting with Reim’s emperor, but he still wasn’t looking forward to it much by the looks of it. Balbadd’s palace probably wasn’t his favorite place.

He’d come around eventually, though. He had to.

Hakuryuu told him to get ready to leave as soon as he was dressed. As long as he had a good idea of how far it was and in what direction he needed to go, using transfer magic over large distances was easy. Reim had a much more widely spread population than Kou that made it hard to gauge where the capital was using the rukh, but they found their way to Remano’s outskirts without too much trouble.

It was cooler than Balbadd but hotter than Rakushou. The outer city wasn’t well-kept in the same way the edges of Rakushou were, but they weren’t slums like what covered a large portion of Balbadd either. As they advanced to the city’s center, nearly nude sculptures cropped up in seemingly random places.

“Wish we had these in Kou,” Judar joked. “Would’ve made it way easier for me to understand gossip the first few months.”

They passed a sculpture of a woman with her breasts exposed and Hakuryuu politely averted his eyes. “It’s a strange form of decor for the streets,” he said.

“You’re all humans, what’s the point in acting so shy about it?” Judar passed a hand over a marble woman’s breast as they passed just to see Hakuryuu squirm.

“Don’t talk like that here,” Hakuryuu said.

“Right, right. Can’t have them figuring out my secret identity.”

Hakuryuu elbowed him.

After another half hour of walking Judar insisted on getting something to eat. Transferring so far made him want to take a nap, really, but Hakuryuu was intent on finding somewhere to stay for the night in the city’s center rather than its outskirts. A nap would have to wait. After that, food was his best bet.

The restaurants in Reim were different from the ones in Kou. First and foremost, they were given forks to eat with.

“So this is what Scheherazade was talking about,” Judar said. “These are the ones you spear your food with!”

Hakuryuu looked away in embarrassment as Judar did just that, full of enthusiasm for being proven right. “Honestly. You get excited about the strangest things.”

“How are you not excited? I always wondered what these things were like. Thought they’d be a little more like swords, though. Like knives are. But no one eats with just knives, right?”

Hakuryuu shook his head. “Of course not. I don’t think it would be effective. You were always dropping things when you tried using chopsticks like that, too.”

It was just Judar’s luck that he kept dropping food off the top of his fork, just like he used to when he first started using chopsticks.

“You’re not very graceful, are you?”

“…Well! It’s my first time, so what do you expect!”

“A fork isn’t exactly hard to master.”

Hakuryuu’s mood improved over lunch. He seemed to enjoy trying new foods, his rukh chirping with interest when he tried the regional vegetables, and was pleased with the quality and different techniques. It helped that he got a kick out of teasing Judar, too, secondhand embarrassment forgotten completely as they fell into a familiar pattern of light-hearted arguing.

The downside of being in Reim was that everything had to be paid for in metal coins rather than convenient bills. It looked troublesome to Judar but Hakuryuu paid with ease.

“They’re called dinars. Sindria uses them as well,” Hakuryuu told him. “You should get used to using them. It’d do you well for in case the need to use them arises.”

“Why? The way we do it at home is more convenient. They should learn our method, not the other way around.”

“Maybe,” Hakuryuu said. His lukewarm response made Judar frown.

They reached the senate building in the late afternoon. Hakuryuu handed his official invite to audience with the emperor to have a meeting scheduled by an attendant. They were soon informed that the emperor could meet with them in as early as two days’ time.

“He’s making us _wait?_ ”

“It’s a busy job,” Hakuryuu said. He thanked the attendant and turned to start their search for a place to stay the next few nights.

“It can’t be that bad if they have a senate and an emperor to split the work between. Or maybe it’s actually counterproductive having all those people in charge?” Judar wondered out loud. “I can’t imagine you sharing with anyone.”

Hakuryuu shrugged. “It’s Reim’s way of doing things. We haven’t been here long enough to see how the system works.”

“Probably only works if their king’s a weak guy. Our work here should be easy.”

Hakuryuu covered Judar’s mouth with his hand. “We’re in another country, you know.”

“—Ggh!” Judar pulled Hakuryuu’s hand off. “Fine. But I’m not wrong.”

The nearest hotel was grand in size, not unlike a palace. It would have compared favorably to Balbadd’s own royal palace during its prime, no doubt. Its price tag was comparable to its luxury, but Hakuryuu had no problem dumping a pile of coins out for it. For how much he liked to roll his eyes at Judar’s love of luxury, if he had to choose between a low class hotel and a palace with a price tag, Hakuryuu would pick the palace nine times out of ten.

The room itself had a complimentary bowl of fruit and a soft bed littered with pillows. It was much nicer than where Judar used to stay in town - there was no competition. Hakuryuu grimaced when Judar pointed that out.

A little comment like that wouldn’t tire Hakuryuu out on a normal day, but today it had some effect. Judar didn’t think he was very good at masking his mood. Even when he tried to force agreeableness, it still showed through in his increased sensitivity.

“Take a nap with me,” Judar said. It caught Hakuryuu off guard just as much as his remark about the time they’d been on poor terms, and he struggled recovering a neutral expression.

“I’m going to the colosseum,” Hakuryuu replied.

“And doing what? Impressing the gladiators with how tired you look?”

Hakuryuu scowled but looked away. “It can’t be that bad. I slept plenty long enough last night.” He turned to leave but Judar wrapped his arms around his waist.

“Come on,” he said into Hakuryuu’s neck. “Just an hour or two. Would that kill you?”

Hakuryuu had his hand on the doorknob but didn’t turn it. “What’s with you today?”

“What’s with _you?_ ”

“Nothing,” Hakuryuu said.

“Nothing with me, either. I’m always like this. Take a nap or I’ll annoy you so much you’ll be too irritated to get on the Yambala tribe’s good side.”

Hakuryuu’s hand dropped from the doorknob. “Fine,” he said. “Since I can see that you won’t just let me go. This won’t work tomorrow, though.”

Judar tightened his grip on Hakuryuu’s waist for a moment, pleased that his plan worked, before letting go. “Finally. You’re so stubborn.”

“As if you aren’t,” Hakuryuu mumbled. He moved his bag from the bed to the floor, removed all his uncomfortable layers and his arm, then stretched out on the bed. He really did look like he needed a nap. Judar joined him without hesitation, kissing the back of his neck before wrapping his arms around Hakuryuu’s stomach.

It was as comfortable as always. Hakuryuu’s rukh chirped in agreement, settling down far quicker than Hakuryuu would have admitted he fell asleep.

By the time he woke up, only a small stretch of reddish light was coming in through the room’s tall window. Judar smiled at Hakuryuu’s terrible bedhead. He was still asleep with his mouth opened just enough to drool a little.

He’d never sleep again if Judar told him he looked like that when he slept.

Judar got up and stretched, then popped a piece of an unfamiliar purple fruit in his mouth.

It was sour. He wrinkled his nose and tried what he knew to be a pear instead. It was much sweeter but he could do without the grainy texture.

Hakuryuu woke while Judar was taste testing their complementary fruits. He squinted at Judar for a few seconds in the half-light, trying to process that he’d woken up later than Judar of all people, before sitting up and stretching.

“You look better,” Judar said. “Much more fitting of my emperor.”

“I didn’t sleep well yesterday,” Hakuryuu mumbled, suppressing a yawn. “I didn’t think it showed.”

Judar couldn’t remember Hakuryuu waking him up at all, which he usually did when he couldn’t sleep. Maybe he woke while he was in Balbadd’s palace garden. Not that it mattered much - what mattered was that he looked more well-rested now. Even better, it was too late for him to go check out the colosseum now. He’d have to spend time with Judar instead.

His own rukh reacting to his emotions with a coo made Judar jump. Normally such mundane things didn’t matter to him, and yet here he was, thinking it was good that Hakuryuu had a good nap. What was up with that? He never used to think like that.

“…Judar?”

“It’s nothing!” Judar said, louder than he needed to. “Let’s go try olives. They’re pretty famous, right? I’ve never had them.”

“I thought you’d sworn off new foods. Or have you given that up for good?”

“Yeah, well… it’s not like anything but milk’s made me throw up so far. Maybe I just got unlucky.”

Hakuryuu stared for a moment before shrugging. “Could you tie my arm back?”

Judar obliged and before long they were back out on the streets of Remano. It didn’t take long to find a row of restaurants, each claiming to be the best in Reim. They chose one at random.

Olives were, quite frankly, disgusting. The flavor was impossible to describe in the worst way possible. Hakuryuu, who had the worst taste imaginable, liked them.

“They’re actually pretty good,” he said. “You’re just picky.”

Judar stuck his tongue out. “You like bitter vegetables and spicy things. I don’t trust your judgement on what’s good or not.”

“Oh, shut up. I’m not listening to _you_ of all people criticize what I like to eat. You’re a thousand times worse.”

“What’s wrong with what I eat, huh?”

“You know exactly what’s wrong with it! You should be eating your vegetables, and grains, and—”

“I keep telling you, I don’t need any of that! I’ve lived this long without it, so it should be fine.”

“But it might not always be fine,” Hakuryuu said. “So you should at least try.”

He understood that Hakuryuu meant if he managed to master Gyokuen’s magic - with a human body, he might actually have to eat like a human. “Whatever,” he said. “I’ll worry about it when it happens.”

Judar ordered a few more sample dishes to try but wasn’t especially impressed by any of them. Quails were a pain to eat, especially with a fork: their tiny bones were everywhere and the taste wasn’t good enough to go through the effort. Pasta was alright but tended to be boring. Another dish was covered in a white sauce that Judar didn’t trust to not have milk in it. Hakuryuu finished what Judar didn’t. Of course, he had to nag at Judar for being so picky beforehand.

The honeyed dates served for dessert were good, though. Even if eating nothing but dessert gave Hakuryuu the pleasure of proof that Judar was an unreasonably picky eater.

Without paper lanterns lining the streets, it stayed dark after sundown. There were candle holders on the outsides of some shops, but many weren’t lit. Judar doubted that they’d stay lit with the breeze making its way around anyway.

“Feels like a whole different city,” Judar said. An oil lamp in the distance caught his eye. “Though it looks like they’ve got night guards here, too.”

Hakuryuu nodded, though it was hard to see in the darkness. He was walking rather confidently, so Judar figured he knew the way back. They passed the guard and the next street was darker.

Hakuryuu stopped. No one was around but them, and he took the moment to look around more carefully. It was a bad time for sightseeing. Judar doubted he could much.

“It’s dark,” Hakuryuu said.

“Yeah, no shit.”

“You grew up in the dark, right?”

“…Yeah. Darker than this.” Judar walked past him in the direction they’d been going. “It’s this way, right?”

“You used magic to see, though, right? It should have been about like this.”

Judar frowned. So he wasn’t going to budge. “No. It wasn’t. There weren’t stars like there are here, and I only learned light magic after I came to the surface.”

“What about sound? You can hear underwater, but is there a lot of noise?”

“No. There are no bugs. Mostly you only hear swimming and sirens talking. But there were only a handful of other sirens, so…”

“I see. Thank you for answering.”

“No problem, I guess…?”

Hakuryuu continued walking as if he hadn’t just stopped in the middle of a street a night to chat about something strange. Judar followed.

“Hey, why’d you ask?”

“I wanted to know, that’s all,” Hakuryuu said. He was looking up at the stars as he walked instead of at Judar. “It must have been strange to come out of the sea to see the sky.”

“I guess so. But I’d heard stories about it, so I already knew it’d be there.”

“What about birds?”

“Knew about those, too. Though I thought they’d have scales. Feathers are weird.”

“You must have heard lots of stories to know about even birds. What about bugs?”

“No surprise there either,” Judar said. “Scheherazade was always telling stories about those things. Had me thinking they were cool for a minute, too. Last I believed anything she said. Bugs are as boring as it gets.”

“…Don’t you ever miss your colony?”

“Of course not. I’d rather spend time with you.”

Hakuryuu’s rukh flushed pink as his honest surprise hit his face.

What the hell, he’d told Hakuryuu many times that he was his favorite. Why it only got through his thick skull this time was beyond Judar.

“I thought you were acting when you used to say those things,” Hakuryuu confessed. “That I was your favorite and all. I thought for a long time you were saying it to cover up your… crimes. But you have no reason to act now.”

He’d been interested in Hakuryuu long before he had to kill. Judar didn’t bother to correct Hakuryuu’s assumption that he’d killed to stay since the beginning. He would have never done it if he hadn’t gotten so attached to his place in the human world. But that didn’t matter. “It’s always been the truth,” Judar said. “You’re more interesting than anything in the ocean. There’s nothing and no one interesting there. So I’d rather be here.”

Judar’s eyes had adjusted just well enough to see the unhappy expression flash across Hakuryuu’s face. “I see,” he said. “I hope that I’ll… live up to your standards, then.”

“You’ve done a fine job of that so far.”

Once they returned to their room, Hakuryuu claimed tiredness and slept before Judar could ask him what all the questions were about from earlier and what he’d done to upset him this time.

By morning Judar had forgotten all about it. Hakuryuu getting up without any prompting unlike the day before in Balbadd put his mind at ease.

Not that it was uneasy in the first place. He was just happy that Hakuryuu had energy to spare now that he was taking a break from work.

Hakuryuu went to the colosseum before Judar was ready to leave bed. He left a note reminding Judar of the name of their hotel and some dinars to spend should he get bored, so Judar left to roam around the city.

It was truly a city of water. Signs advertising bathhouses were everywhere - Judar assumed they were for the city’s poor who couldn’t afford baths in their homes - and fountains were the centerpieces of every plaza. Gambling was popular, too. He was pretty sure it was illegal in Kou but in Reim it was as normal and popular of a pastime as any.

Once he got fed up with playing rigged coin games Judar headed to the colosseum to see if he could find Hakuryuu. A woman stopped him. “No entry,” she said. “Pay at the other side to watch a fight.”

Judar was about to argue that he wasn’t there to watch a fight before thinking better of it. “They fight to the death, right?”

“That’s correct.”

He’d seen far too many people kill each other in the war for a simple fight between gladiators to hold his interest, but he was curious about how strong the men the Reim Empire sent to death for sport were. So he left for the other side and paid to see a show.

They were talented as far as humans went, but wholly unimpressive by Judar’s standards. The only thing extraordinary about the spectacle was how popular it was with women. For him to be surprised at that, human social structures were getting to him more than he thought.

It was a sport having muscled men fighting until their arms were covered and sweat and their enemy dead. He could understand why bored noble ladies liked it, but they just weren’t skilled enough or determined enough for Judar’s taste.

Only Hakuryuu ever held his interest in the first place. It was to be expected that men sent to fight to the death were less impressive all around.

He watched a few shows in a row until he was certain that Hakuryuu would be done talking with the Yambala gladiators, then returned to the hotel so as to not miss him.

A fresh wound peeked out from the sleeve covering Hakuryuu’s good arm and his hair was damp from bathing. He had many more bruises than the night before, each a different shade of purple.

Judar almost laughed. “You get in a lot of fights, you know that?”

“I had to prove myself before they would agree to teach me magoi manipulation. Even though they said it was rare for someone to understand their technique well enough to believe in it and come to learn it, they still wouldn’t accept me as a disciple without proof of skill.”

“Did you have to compete in the colosseum?”

“Yes.”

“Huh. I must’ve just missed you. I watched a few matches.”

“How was it?” Hakuryuu asked.

“Kinda boring. They didn’t impress me. They weren’t even professionals, were they? They must save all their really talented warriors for the battlefield. It’d be boring if this is all Reim’s made of.”

Hakuryuu slowly nodded in agreement. “Reim is full of injustices as well…”

Judar smiled at the dark look that crossed Hakuryuu’s face. “Such as?”

“Forcing slaves to fight to the death for entertainment, never to be free for circumstances past their control…”

“Some must have been born into it, too.”

“Yes. The slave industry is among Reim’s strongest.”

“So what’re you going to do about it?” Judar asked.

“It’s in our best interest to ally with Reim,” Hakuryuu said. “If we don’t they will most likely ally with the Seven Seas Alliance. But I can’t overlook an injustice on this scale after all.”

As shabby as he looked, bruised with a haphazardly cleaned cut running down his arm, Judar believed him. He had the same determined look in his eye as he had before Kouen was defeated, that look that he’d missed so much.

Judar pushed his lips to Hakuryuu’s, holding his head between his hands. Hakuryuu kissed back, teeth grazing Judar’s lower lip. When they parted he pulled Judar to sit on his lap for a more comfortable position.

In truth, it didn’t matter what happened to Reim or even Sindria as long as Hakuryuu had that look in his eyes that said he had something to live for, something past the vague desire to not disappoint Judar in his weakness. 

Judar felt around for Hakuryuu’s injuries. None were too bad at all. He was much more skilled than the gladiators, after all. Even with one arm it must have been an easy fight. “How long will it take for them to teach you magoi manipulation?”

“I understand it well enough already from what you’ve told me,” Hakuryuu said. “So I don’t expect it to take long.” He tapped at the back of Judar’s choker. “Can I take this off?”

“Go for it.” Judar said. He’d gotten a lot better at keeping magoi without his jewelry now that he was used to his body. Besides, Hakuryuu took it off so much it was nearly useless.

Hakuryuu licked the crook of his neck, then sucked lightly.

“I’ve been making progress on that spell,” Judar said. “They used to always die when I tried it, but now it’s pretty safe.”

Hakuryuu hummed in acknowledgement. It tickled.

“Takes up a lot of magoi, though. Even with the magoi from the sirens of Musta’sim and what I got from the war, I’d run out in a few months if I kept it up all the time.”

“But you’re still looking into the method Gyokuen was using, aren't you?

“Yeah. But the spell I’ve been working on is useful enough, as long as I don’t kill myself casting it.”

“Isn’t that what you have a borg for?”

“Would probably only activate if I were actively trying to kill myself.”

Hakuryuu stiffened and tried to cover his surprise with a sigh. He met Judar’s gaze, eyes darting to his wet lips for only a split second. 

Too soon, huh? But more than being upset at Judar, he seemed embarrassed of the fact it’d been on his mind.

Judar didn’t think it was weak. Not really. But it was good if Hakuryuu thought it was. That way he wouldn’t try it again.

“Have I told you before that you’re really good at killing the mood?” Hakuryuu asked.

“Yeah, a few times,” Judar said. He wasn’t trying to depress Hakuryuu, really. “Let’s try the bed?”

“Only if you shut up this time,” Hakuryuu said, and allowed Judar to pull him by the hand and push him into the soft covers.

He held Hakuryuu down on the bed, his damp hair sticking to Judar’s hand when he tried to move it out of the way. He didn’t make any effort to avoid Hakuryuu’s bruises as he felt around under his shirt, tracing his muscles.

“You’ve been slacking on training,” Judar said. “I can feel it.”

“Didn’t I just tell you to shut up?”

Judar laughed. He moved a knee between Hakuryuu’s legs, pressing more firmly than he had to. He was rewarded with the sight of Hakuryuu biting his lip, determined not to moan until Judar was taking it seriously.

As if he’d do _that._

He moved his hands across Hakuryuu’s arms, dragging his nails as he went. “But your arms are still in good shape. Great, even.”

“I didn’t ask for a full body critique.”

“It’s not a critique. You have a great body,” Judar said, and curled his fingers around Hakuryuu’s. “I was just watching gladiators all day, too. So it’s not like I don’t know what a good body looks like.” He kissed him on the forehead, then his lips, then his mole. He was sure to move his knee just enough to keep Hakuryuu interested as he kissed him.

Instead of responding, Hakuryuu gritted his teeth.

Judar smiled and let go of his prosthetic hand to touch him through his pants, running a finger back and forth across him. “You’re so stubborn,” Judar said. “I’m just trying to compliment you, you know?” He was only half hard, but Judar was confidant that would change.

He sat up and directed his attention to getting Hakuryuu off more seriously, finally unbuttoning his pants and pulling the fabric away. He slid his thumb over the head. Hakuryuu gasped at the feeling.

Judar was in a good mood. He wanted to make it last. “I could try using that spell now.”

“Don’t,” Hakuryuu said. “Not until you’re sure it’ll—”

Hakuryuu’s voice faltered when Judar wrapped his hand around him. Judar stifled a laugh at Hakuryuu’s indignant face.

“Not until I’m sure it’ll what? Be fun? ‘Cause I’m pretty sure of that.”

Hakuryuu gulped and tried again. “No. Not until you’re sure it’ll work.”

“Haven’t you been waiting for it for awhile, though?” Judar asked as he pumped. “You’re so patient.”

“How many times have I told you—,” another gasp, “to be quiet?”

“Tons,” Judar said. “But you’re going to finish anyway.”

It wasn’t much longer until he did. They made a mess as usual, and Hakuryuu would pretend to be annoyed with him for his teasing for a few minutes for his pride’s sake, but it was fun.

As they cleaned up Judar was reminded of the day before, when he found himself happy at something as insignificant as how well Hakuryuu’s nap went. He was in a good mood now, too, smiling at Hakuryuu’s post-orgasmic clumsiness and wondering what it felt like. It wouldn’t be a mystery for much longer.


	22. Chapter 22

Hakuryuu woke Judar up early, rattling off a list of things to remember before meeting the emperor. Judar put a pillow over his head in an attempt to get back to sleep, but if Hakuryuu was anything it was stubborn.

“—You need to eat breakfast today, too, since it may be a while and you might not like what they serve for lunch, and really, you can’t be rude like you were to King Sinbad!”

“You were just as rude as I was,” Judar grumbled.

“…He was underestimating us,” Hakuryuu said. “Trying to impose his terms on me before I had any official experience just because I thought of asking for his help in the civil war. However, we’re meeting Reim’s emperor on his terms.”

“So act like it, right? Courtesy and all that.”

“Exactly. I know that I showed you proper manners, so please use them.”

Judar sighed and slid the pillow off his head. He’d never wished Hakuryuu wasn’t a morning person more than he did now. “You’re not even planning on making a real alliance, are you? What’s it matter?”

“We’re aiming for an alliance,” Hakuryuu said. “Though if we honor it or not is another story.”

Judar stretched and squinted at the bright morning sun coming from the room’s windows. It was far too bright for the time of day and would only get brighter as mid-morning approached.

Just terrible. Why did the sun have to rise so damn fast?

Breakfast was fruits from the weekend market. Only then was Judar awake enough to realize that the sun rising quickly wasn’t the problem - Hakuryuu _did_ let him sleep in for an hour or two, and must’ve only woken him up when he managed to stress himself out sitting around waiting. That was why it was so bright when he woke up.

Hakuryuu was much calmer now that he was walking around, though the markets failed to capture his interest. Instead he was deep in thought about how the meeting with Reim’s emperor might go, considering every possibility so as to not be caught off guard.

Judar was kind of looking forward to meeting the emperor. No matter how it went he’d be satisfied. It didn’t matter if they made an ‘alliance’ or if the leftover hostilities from Kouen’s time running the empire were magnified. Both would yield interesting results.

Once at the imperial palace, they were shown to the throne room by soldiers. Judar bit back a quip at how unfriendly they were - they’d done the same to Sinbad months ago, after all. Politics and soldiers went together.

The emperor didn’t rise at their entrance, smiling from his place on his raised and gilded throne surrounded by poles proudly displaying Reim’s flag. An officer introduced him in a booming voice. “His Majesty Julian Publilius Caluades, fiftieth emperor of Reim! Supreme commander, Ignatius Alexius! The Emperor and High Priest of the Kou Empire are here for their audience.”

Caluades kept the soldiers bowing for a moment before motioning to them to stand. Instead of leaving, the soldiers moved to the edges of the room and remained as still as possible.

“I apologize for the delay,” Caluades said. “I didn’t expect you to arrive so early.”

Hakuryuu smiled the polished smile that he used to use to dissuade those in Rakushou from checking up on him too often, a perfect feigned innocence filling his face. “Travel is no inconvenience for us.”

Caluades chuckled. “Magic is a great thing, isn’t it?” He stood. “Call for the Sacerdos Maximo and Muu. I believe they’re the most suitable choices for entertaining our guests after our meeting.”

A row of soldiers bowed and left.

“I grow stiff indoors,” Caluades explained as he stepped down from his podium. “It’s too early in the year for roses, but I hope our squills please you. They only grow within Reim’s borders.”

Caluades took them through the garden, walking at a speed befitting of his age. Judar wondered how he was still on the throne. He looked physically weak and, worse yet, he didn’t seem to have the personality of a ruler.

Then again, with the way Hakuryuu returned his pleasantries in turn, he didn’t seem to either. He showed no sign of the desire to change Reim to Caluades’s face, but when he turned away to look at the garden’s green rosebuds he frowned with unmistakable distaste.

It was funny to watch. Hakuryuu wasn’t subtle at all - he could be if he wanted to, but it seemed to go against some basic moral of his to be dishonest in the face of things he hated. Judar liked not being on the receiving end of it anymore.

Caluades brought them to a garden table to talk at. His soldiers quietly pulled chairs for each of them, and a slave came to deliver drinks soon after.

“Emperor Hakuryuu,” Caluades said, “we’ve been talking for awhile now and yet I still have no idea what kind of man you are, or what kind of a country you wish to lead.”

“I could say the same of you,” Hakuryuu said. “Though it seems Reim won’t much longer be under your influence.”

Judar raised an eyebrow. After telling him not to be rude, Hakuryuu was gonna ask that?

Another slave delivered olives to snack on. Caluades waved him away without offering thanks. “The finest in the country,” he said, taking one between his fingers. “Though I presume you’ve already tried Reim’s luxuries if you’ve been here long enough to hear rumors of the coming election.”

“Word travels fast to the interested,” Hakuryuu said. He didn’t touch the olives. “Why are you not running for re-election? Reim is prosperous under your rule.”

“You flatter me,” Caluades said. “However, I’ve held the throne for fifty years now. My generation is already coming to an end. Reim needs new blood, not for me to stay long past my welcome. It’s in the country’s best interest to hold an election.”

“…I see.”

“No need to look so disappointed. I’m emperor until the election. Now, why have you come all this way? To make a friend out of us? Or a foe?” Caluades’s eyes flicked to Judar.

“Just to talk,” Hakuryuu said. “I think that meeting in person is more suitable than corresponding via letters.”

“An impatient man, aren’t you,” Caluades said. “However, I can’t say I don’t agree. I’ve grown tired of King Sinbad’s method. His letters continue to arrive whether I send for a response or not. Your method is welcome, as long as talking is all you wish to do.”

“Of course.”

“Has your priest also come to talk?” Caluades asked. “He’s been looking quite bored.”

Hakuryuu kicked Judar’s leg lightly under the table to remind him to be polite.

“Politics aren’t my thing,” Judar said.

“Nonetheless, I’ve called for someone for you to meet.”

“Okay,” Judar said. “Cool. Looking forward to it.”

Caluades smiled. “Reim has been home to many generations of magicians, but this is the first I’ve heard of one from Kou.”

Hakuryuu frowned. “Magic was nothing more than a myth until recently.” 

“In Kou, perhaps. In Reim they’re the same as any other person. We stand strong even without using them for our campaigns.”

Judar wasn’t worried even if Reim was crawling with them. Sirens relied so much on magic that they’d be worthless fighting in his isolation barrier. He wondered if Caluades even knew they were sirens or if everyone was telling the same lies to keep from being skinned.

“Even so, we know how to fight magic,” Caluades said. “Reim’s innovations can be used by anyone and have enough strength to break a borg.”

“…Very impressive,” Hakuryuu said. “Are you referring to new spells?”

“No, no.” Caluades leaned back in his chair. “Inventions of man. Things that our children will be able to use and improve, not the result of some magic that depends on bloodline.”

“I see. Why are you telling us this?” Hakuryuu asked.

“Reim does not shy from war. Even without an enemy we’re always preparing for what may come.” Caluades sighed. “All of our neighboring countries - Parthevia, Heliohapt, Sasan, Artemyra… joined the Seven Seas Alliance years ago. King Sinbad has asked me to join many times as well, and I’m sure he’s already asked you. After all, our countries are the last two in the world to not follow the laws King Sinbad makes. But he fills me with a certain anxiety - we stand proud of the country we’ve built. Handing it over isn’t something I’d like to do. Though I suppose my opinion won’t matter much longer.”

Caluades paused, then cleared his throat before continuing. “Though I didn’t join the alliance, I have agreed to a peace treaty. I will not raise arms against them as long as they don’t raise arms against me. Tell me, do you plan to wage war with the Seven Seas Alliance?”

“Of course not,” Hakuryuu said easily. “I spent months studying in Sindria. I have no ill will against King Sinbad and wouldn’t betray his trust.”

Judar almost rolled his eyes. Last he checked, Sinbad didn’t trust them at all. It wasn’t possible to betray trust that didn’t exist. If anything they’d done Sinbad a favor by giving him fair warning of what was to come.

Caluades smiled back earnestly at Hakuryuu’s carefully polite expression. Judar could understand why he thought Reim would be better in another’s emperor’s hands. If he believed Hakuryuu, he was losing it in his old age.

“Have you come to make an agreement with Reim as well, then?”

“Yes,” Hakuryuu said and once they came to a peace agreement he proposed several new trade routes from Rakushou and Balbadd to Napolia. He’d definitely done his research, as the emperor was happy to accept the deals.

“I’m surprised that you’ve suggested trade,” Caluades said. “And for luxury items of all things! Ren Kouen would have never have suggested that we share our cultures.”

“No,” Hakuryuu agreed. “But I’m not Kouen, and I won’t allow Kou to continue along the path he carved for it. I’ve been working on undoing the changes, little by little.”

“You’re the son of the first emperor, correct?”

“Yes. I wish for my country to return to how my brothers and father wanted it to be,” Hakuryuu said. “It’s slow progress, but the damage Kouen did is being undone.”

Caluades nodded, then stood. Hakuryuu followed suit. “Was that all you needed?” Caluades asked.

“One more thing,” Hakuryuu said. His eyes darkened, but his rukh became excited. “I’ve been to the colosseum. As I understand, it’s one of the country’s main attractions. However, I was left wondering. Why is it that the people of Reim kill each other for sport?”

“Don’t worry yourself with it. They’re only slaves.”

“Oh, so they don’t even have a choice in it? Here I was thinking there would be a logical explanation.”

“Slavery is a heated topic in the senate,” Caluades said with a practiced neutral tone. “If change comes, it will come from our people.” He motioned to his guards. “Please show them to Muu. I’ve promised the senate to sit in on today’s discussion, and don’t have the time to spend smelling flowers any longer.”

Caluades gave them one final curt not before leaving.

“What was up with that?” Judar grumbled as the soldiers led them back to the entrance. “Guy’s a spoiled brat inside, I can tell. Did you see his eyes get all slimy when you said you’d trade for luxuries? I bet he’s never even left Reim.”

“Like _you_ should be calling him spoiled,” Hakuryuu scoffed. He lowered his voice. “Though he probably really hasn’t ever left Reim…”

Judar snickered. “Wonder what kind of rich boy they’re gonna elect next?”

Hakuryuu shrugged. “Not really any of our business, as long as they don’t convince the senate to join the Seven Seas Alliance.”

A guard glared at them for whispering. Judar grinned at him until he turned back away. It took some time to reach the huge palace’s entrance. After its dim halls, outside was bright enough to make Judar squint.

“Emperor and High Priest of Kou, here are Muu Alexius, the leader of Reim’s esteemed Fanalis Corps, and Titus Alexius, our country’s Sacerdos Maximo.”

Judar blinked. The same Titus he grew up with stood before him. Having traded a tail for legs, Titus stood a few inches shorter than Judar, blending right into Reim’s people with the same blond hair and loosely wrapped clothes. It was a more convincingly human appearance than Judar thought Titus would ever be capable of, and he was a bit taken aback.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance!” Titus said with a mischievous smile. “How absolutely _rare_ to meet another magician. Guards, please leave us.”

The guards did as Titus said. Hakuryuu scowled, somewhere between recognizing Titus and having no idea why they were being introduced. Titus walked up to them, a tall and muscular man following closely behind, and held out a hand for Judar to shake.

“Is this some kind of joke?” Judar asked.

Titus laughed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Why, this is the first I’ve seen you!”

“Hey, you…”

Muscle man - Muu, apparently - smiled. “Titus is just excited to meet another magician.”

Titus grabbed Judar’s hand and shook it. Judar pulled it free.

“Not very friendly, are you?” Titus asked.

“What’d you expect?”

It seemed to have finally clicked in Hakuryuu’s head, as he bowed politely to Titus. It was far too nice for someone like Titus, so Judar introduced him properly.

“He’s Hakuryuu, the emperor of Kou,” Judar said. “But you knew that already, right?”

“Of course. I heard about the war. Muu is also a war veteran. Maybe you two would get along.”

Hakuryuu looked dubious at best, but allowed Muu to engage him in conversation.

“Why’re you even here?” Judar asked Titus.

“I already told you before that I’d go to Reim,” Titus said.

“Yeah, but like… Reim’s pretty far. And how’d you get promoted so fast?”

“Lady Scheherazade taught me transfer magic. The emperor was very pleased by it!”

“Seriously?” Judar asked and frowned. Titus always had it so easy. He glanced at Hakuryuu, who was awkwardly making conversation with Muu. Hakuryuu looked over, too, and for a split second they shared a silent _why is this happening._

Titus tugged at his sleeve. “Come now, I thought you’d be happier to see me! Wasn’t it you who said one should react properly to things like this?”

“I am reacting properly,” Judar said. “Properly weirded out. How’d you even know we were here?”

“The emperor said I should meet you, of course. We have the same position, and our countries are becoming friends, so—”

“ _We’re_ not becoming friends,” Judar said.

“You’re more like an older brother to me than a friend, anyway.”

“We’re not siblings, either!”

“We are!” Titus argued. “Mostly. Anyway, more importantly, you’ve tricked me! I had the wrong impression of Emperor Hakuryuu.”

“Huh? No, I was totally honest about what he’s like.”

“Liar. Look, he’s so small compared to Muu,” Titus said, motioning wildly. “You said he was stronger and more handsome than anyone in the palace, capable of winning one hundred fights in a row while still having the strength left another. Muu can’t even do that, so I can’t help but think that you’ve exaggerated.”

Judar felt his face heating up. Did Titus have to be so loud? Hakuryuu would never let him hear the end of it if he heard. “Look,” he said. “Just because that muscley guy’s a giant doesn’t mean everyone is. And Hakuryuu’s still more impressive anyway, since he’s so strong with only half the muscle.”

“Hmm… no, I think Muu’s stronger for sure. He can pick me up with one hand. I don’t suppose Emperor Hakuryuu could do the same?”

“Anyone could pick you up, pipsqueak!”

“I’d like to see you try!”

Judar pushed Titus, then annoyed at how little effect it had, tried again. It was just as futile.

Titus pushed back with about the same strength, then laughed. “It’s just like old times. You haven’t actually changed at all, have you?”

“Have too. I got stronger.”

“I pushed harder than you,” Titus said. “You’ve still got a long ways to go until you can call yourself stronger.”

“No,” Judar argued, “I pushed harder! You almost tripped over your hair. I saw it. My magic’s way stronger, too.”

Titus waved his claims away. “Nonsense. Look, you’ve gotten dirt on your braid. Proof that I won. And nothing short of a proper duel could decide whose magic is more powerful.”

“It’s not - huh? Seriously?” Judar moved his braid over his shoulder to check. There really was a bit of dirt. He hated it when that happened.

“I have just the solution. Reim is full of the finest baths. I’ll show you to one.”

“As if I don’t know how to find a bath! I’ve been here way longer than you, you know.”

“But I hear baths are different abroad,” Titus said. “Here in Reim we wash ourselves in public outdoor baths. Can you really do that without me showing you an empty bath?”

Judar frowned. Titus wasn’t the type to try to deceive others, so it was probably the truth. Still, it was possible that the human world had changed Titus too. So he had to be on his guard. There was no way he’d ever live down getting tricked by Titus of all people.

He glanced to Hakuryuu for some kind of hint to whether Reim was like that or not, but he was listening to Muu.

Of course he was.

“Why do you look so suspicious? I wouldn’t trick you,” Titus said. “You’re the only one who does that to people.”

“Am not. Yunan does too.”

“I’ve never been tricked by Yunan! I think you’re lying.”

“Hey, you… Hakuryuu! Do they really bathe outside in Reim?”

Hakuryuu turned to Judar’s voice and blinked, then looked doubtful. So it was the first he’d heard of it too.

“It’s true,” the muscley redhead said. Judar had already forgotten his name. “My family owns a bath. It’s closed to the public in the evenings. You’re free to use it privately then, if you’d like.”

Judar frowned. Even if they said that, it wasn’t like he could. Muscle man’s family would still be around. Too risky.

“The water is relaxing after a long day,” Titus said.

“You bathe there?”

“Of course. It’s my house too.”

“You work fast.”

Titus smiled. “I didn’t know how to rent a room and Muu kindly invited me to stay. So now we’re roommates.”

“…How nice is the bath?”

“As nice as it gets. Muu’s family is quite noble.”

If Titus could bathe in it, it was probably safe. “Fine. Where is it?”

Titus led him to the Alexius baths, smiling all the way and humming a song he’d never heard that was probably popular in Reim.

Judar thought he knew Titus well enough to know what would come once they arrived, and fully expected Titus to undress and bathe too, treating it like the ocean. But instead of offering to bathe together, after making sure there were enough towels and the door to the outside was locked, Titus pointed towards another door. “That’s the way to the house. We’ll be having dinner soon, so please join us. I’ll see that Emperor Hakuryuu will eat with us too.”

Titus smiled again and left without another word.

It was strange. Normally Titus was nosier than that.

Judar took a moment to appreciate the bath. It was larger than the baths in Kou’s imperial palace by a long shot. It lacked a ceiling, though it was surrounded by pillars and walls on each side, and the sun urged him to climb into the water and relax. Though it was already nearing sundown, it still carried enough heat to make him sweat.

It felt a little weird to undress with the sun watching for how long he’d spent telling himself that no one could see his body aside from Hakuryuu. It wasn’t like a human would climb all the way up the pillars to watch him from above. That’d be stupid.

There were a variety of soaps, oils, and sponges at the bath’s edge. Judar smelled each fragrance, taking the nice ones to use. They didn’t have many of the same smells in Kou and trying them out was fun.

If only the bath were warmer than what the sun could get it to. Then it’d be perfect.

Judar lost track of time enjoying the water and only got out when the sun betrayed him by moving closer to the horizon where it couldn’t warm the bath. It quickly became too cold to be enjoyable. He rebraided his hair with wind magic, too lazy to spend time getting it right when he’d be going back to sleep in a few hours anyway.

He pushed the door to the Alexius house open with effort. Humans and their heavy doors - he’d never understand that. The smell of food reached him before he could take in the imposing hall.

Titus was right. It was a _very_ noble family. If Judar had to guess, he’d say it was only just short of being royalty. Good thing, too - after taking such a long bath he was ready for a three course meal and something warm to drink.

Hakuryuu had spent all winter offering Judar various teas, stubbornly trying to find one he liked, and finally succeeded with a fermented tea from the eastern mountains. That would be good now. There was no way they’d have something like it in Reim, though.

“Oh, Judar, you’re finished! The baths in Reim are the best, don’t you think?”

It was jarring hearing Titus’s voice. It felt like a rude wake-up call from the dazed relaxation of resting in warm water. “The baths in Kou are warmer,” he said.

“Well, there are warm baths here as well. But our land isn’t over a spring. It would be too expensive to heat it, and then only nobles would be able to afford bathing in them.”

“So? This family’s noble. You’re set.”

Titus frowned. “Nobility is only meaningful if people give it meaning. I’d prefer we didn’t contribute to that.”

“Didn’t think you’d have a say in it. Aren’t you just a freeloader?”

“No, I get paid by the emperor. Muu does, too.”

As usual, insults went right over Titus’s head.

A girl peaked around the corner. Titus noticed her and smiled, beckoning for her to come closer.

Judar groaned. Of course. Of fucking course. This was Titus he was dealing with. He should have known there would be a catch.

The child studied Judar from behind Titus. “Is this the guy you were talking about?”

“Yes,” Titus said. “Judar, this is Marga.” Marga beamed at him.

“I knew you’d pick up a cat or dog or something, but I didn’t think you’d really find a kid to keep.”

“How rude. I’m not _keeping_ her. Marga is like a daughter to me. She’s just finished studying for the day.”

Marga looked a little hurt at Judar’s accusation and pointed in the opposite direction from where she came from. “Who’s the stranger with Muu?”

“He came here with Judar. They’re all the way from Kou, a country on the other side of the world,” Titus said. “They’re still cooking, right?”

Marga nodded. “Just the stranger, though. Not Muu.”

“Muu never was the best cook,” Titus said grimly. “We’d better make sure they’re okay.”

“They’re fine,” Judar said. “Hakuryuu’s great at cooking. Probably bossing the big guy around about now.”

They came to find out that was exactly the case. Hakuryuu was asking Muu where ingredients were in an unintentionally commanding voice, and Muu was sitting somewhat meekly at the table giving directions.

“Oh, Titus,” Muu said, relief evident in his voice. “And Marga, too. How did your studying go?”

“Good!” Marga said. “Today I learned about triangles. Do you think doctors need to be good at triangles?”

“I’m sure a doctor who’s good at learning triangles is good at learning how to treat patients,” Titus said.

Judar peeked at the stovetop from behind Hakuryuu’s shoulder. “What’re you making?”

“Chicken stew with potatoes and peas,” Hakuryuu said. “It’s been difficult since there isn’t even black vinegar here, but I’ve been shown to good alternatives.”

“Sounds tough,” Judar said. He wasn’t sure what black vinegar was or what ‘alternatives’ were. At least if something left him throwing up everywhere Titus would be just as miserable. “Is this all?”

“No, of course not.” He took the lid off the pan beside the stew. “Lentils.”

“Gross.”

“Don’t complain. Lentils are—”

“Good for you, yeah, I know. But they’re still gross.” Judar glanced at where Muu was sitting leaned over the table. “Did you tame the muscle-head or something? He seems kinda different.”

“Just tired, I’m sure,” Hakuryuu said. “I don’t think he enjoys cooking much.”

“Titus said something like that, too.”

Titus joined them by the stove to look into the pot. “Oh, chicken stew! One of my favorites.”

Judar raised an eyebrow. He’d assumed that Titus had been with Hakuryuu the whole time, but it sounded like that wasn’t the case at all.

Before long Hakuryuu ordered them both to leave him alone until he was finished cooking.

“If he weren’t emperor, do you think he’d be a chef?” Titus asked. “Our chef says the same thing - ‘please leave my workspace while I cook, don’t go swiping bites before it’s finished!’”

“Can’t imagine it,” Judar said. “Not enough work to keep him busy.”

“A royal chef then?”

“Why stop at that? It’s so boring compared to being the emperor.”

Titus laughed. “You’re so proud of him that it’s a little funny to listen to. I’m looking forward to getting to know him if he’s so wonderful he makes you sing praise.”

Judar shoved Titus. Soon they were back to roughhousing the same as they’d done before he took a bath, only stopping when Marga tried to join in. She was too easy to trip over to keep at it.

“How do you keep from stepping on her?” Judar asked. “She’s so little.”

“Come now. I know you’ve seen children before.”

“Yeah, but it’s not like we had to worry about stepping on Aladdin.”

Marga, who had been listening to their conversation and found it funny, intentionally stepped on Judar’s foot and giggled when Titus picked her up a few inches to move her away.

“Marga isn’t a baby,” Titus said. “She’s a growing human. Tell him how old you are, Marga.”

“Seven,” Marga said. “I’m gonna be a doctor when I’m older, too.”

“Cool,” Judar said. “Study hard, I guess?”

Marga smiled and nodded.

“She has her own tutor,” Titus said. “She’s been learning to read and do math. A very quick learner, too, I must say!”

“What about you?” Judar asked. “They teach you to read?”

“Of course. I’ve had lots of fun learning these things. I’ve especially enjoyed reading adventure novels lately. This world is full of amazing things. I’d love to visit Artemyra or Sasan someday - I read about them and have been curious ever since.”

How Titus found reading fun was beyond him.

By the time they ate Judar had a pretty good idea of how to deal with Marga. She was, as Titus said, just a small human. Curious about the world around her, she asked as many questions as Titus. Though Titus was probably too young and too naive to be adopting a human child, somehow they made it work.

Titus was good at making things work, after all. It was kinda annoying.

Muu offered to prepare rooms, and Hakuryuu considered his offer for a moment before politely declining. “We’ve already rented a room for our time here,” Hakuryuu said. “It would be rude to ask you to have us when we already have somewhere to stay.”

“If you say so,” Muu said. “But please consider this your second home during your stay in Reim. There are still many things I’d like to talk about, and I know that Titus feels the same. Though our chef was out with a cold today, I’m sure he’ll be back in a couple days. He loves preparing Reim’s finest, and he would certainly make anything you’d like.”

“…Thank you. I’ll accept your offer.” 

Judar frowned as Muu and Hakuryuu ironed out the details. He didn’t butt in, and it was decided that Hakuryuu would visit after his training.

Chatting over dinner was the worst way possible to spend their vacation. But if Hakuryuu saw some merit in it, then it wasn’t meaningless. He waited until they were outside to hear Hakuryuu’s explanation.

“If I didn’t accept it would just make it difficult to talk,” Hakuryuu said. “I have more that I want to ask them. About how many other sirens are here, and how much the emperor and senate know. I want to ask about the coming election as well. Unless you’ve already asked Titus all of that?”

“No way. You’ve never talked to Titus, it’s not that easy.”

“How so?”

“See for yourself,” Judar said. “What’d you talk about with the other guy, anyway?”

“He told me about the Fanalis Corps. I’ve never seen a Fanalis before so it was interesting to hear.” He explained what Fanalis were to Judar - another race of human, not another species in the way sirens were, but much stronger than regular humans physically.

“He has shit magoi,” Judar said. “Worse than any other human I’ve ever seen.”

“What’s that have to do with anything?”

“I dunno. You have way more.”

Hakuryuu rolled his eyes but didn’t do a very good job of hiding his smile. “I will continue studying magoi manipulation during the day. You should visit any libraries you can get access to. We may be able to find some indication of what those ‘innovations’ of Reim’s are from them.”

“Think they’d really leave that kind of information in such an obvious place?”

“What’s obvious to us and what they believe to be obvious to us to may be very different things. The emperor said that magicians are common knowledge here, for example. In Kou magicians were nothing more than a legend associated with Torran people until recently. If nothing else, you might find some useful spells.”

It sounded colossally boring. Maybe he could con Titus into doing all the hard work.

Judar had figured Titus would be excited to no end, but in reality they’d barely spoken. Maybe thinking Titus would do all the searching was too optimistic, but he’d never known Titus to be quiet. Ever.

If it proved to be difficult, he could always bother Muscles while he waited instead.

Hakuryuu asked a servant to draw a bath. Their room’s bath was small and cramped compared to the one Judar had bathed in earlier.

“You should try one of the big baths instead. They’re pretty great.”

Hakuryuu shrugged. “I’m fine with a bath of this size.”

“You only say that ‘cause you’ve never used a huge one.”

“They’re public baths. I’d rather take one in private. Besides, I’m surprised you think something to swim in is novel.”

“…Well! Maybe I want to stretch and swim sometimes too!”

Their conversation faded when the servant came back with another bucket of water. She poured it in the bath and left as fast as she came for another.

“Do you only stretch your legs?” Hakuryuu asked once the servant closed the door behind her after leaving. Judar figured he meant legs as opposed to fins.

“Obviously. It’d be too much work otherwise.”

Judar stared absentmindedly out the window as Hakuryuu took his bath.

He hadn’t expected Titus to go straight to the emperor of Reim after coming to land. Adopting some kid, yeah. That was expected. But Titus being here at the core of Reim meant that it wasn’t a good place to start after all. 

Sindria wasn’t a good place to start either, obviously. It was way worse. Besides, if they didn’t try to do something about Reim, then Sindria would get to them first. And that was the worst popular outcome.

So even if Judar didn’t like it, it was good for them that Titus was here. It gave them a way in that made up for their bad luck about the re-elections coming soon. Titus was more of a softy than any of the others, and if someone had to enter Reim, it was good luck that it was Titus instead of Aladdin.

Everything was going well. If Titus didn’t let them take Reim peacefully, Judar was sure he could win in a fight. He had no reason to feel uneasy.


	23. Chapter 23

Hakuryuu said their next step was to figure out the extent of Reim’s military ability - they needed to scope it out as both a potential ally and enemy to best decide their next move. Reim was one of three remaining world powers. It was important to decide where it stood in relation to Kou.

If they went to war, there were two ways to go about it: either they attacked Reim or they attacked the Seven Seas Alliance. Those were the two opposing powers left now that Balbadd and Musta’sim had been claimed. If they attacked one, it was always possible that the other would join in on the opposing side. There wasn’t a foolproof way of doing it.

Nonviolent methods for winning could probably be used, too, but Judar wasn’t so interested in thinking about those prospects. Politics were boring. He couldn’t get excited about them even if he tried. That was work best left for Hakuryuu.

They could also let the rest of the world be. It wasn’t like his goal was to ruin things as much as possible. He just wasn’t confident that anything but war would work. Fighting had giving Hakuryuu a reason to live before, and he’d gotten excited about it again after talking with Reim’s emperor. It’d work again.

It wasn’t that Judar had anything against Reim or the Seven Seas Alliance in particular. He just valued Hakuryuu’s life more than the lives of all the people living within those countries and would sacrifice them as needed.

They could easily do the same. Sinbad would, that was for sure. To him Kou was nothing more than another piece on the gameboard for him to defeat. It was only fair to treat him as disposable in return. 

Judar had no compassion for those who were caught in the middle without the resolve to fight for what they believed in either. That included Titus.

Though Hakuryuu’s exact orders had been to talk to Titus and go to the library, Judar didn’t feel like it. He wanted to see the ability of Reim’s apparently famous Fanalis Corps first. They’d be a step in the right direction from the colosseum as an actual branch of Reim’s army. So it was useful even if Hakuryuu didn’t say to do it. Besides, figuring out if Muu’s muscles were just for show or not was a much more inviting prospect than a dusty old library no matter how he looked at it.

Muu showed no sign of distrust when Judar showed up and said he wanted to watch the Fanalis Corps train.

“Here for a show, are you? Titus said the same thing when we first met,” Muu said. He led Judar through the city, naturally filling every silence with conversation.

Judar couldn’t shake how annoying it was to be treated as Titus’s equally sheltered sibling as Muu chatted amicably, over-explaining basic things.

Never mind that he had been a couple years ago.

But not the sibling part. They’d never been siblings.

Judar couldn’t tell if it was just that association with naive Titus or if Muu knew that Titus, and Judar by extension, wasn’t human.

The Fanalis Corps training grounds was a half-paved clearing at the western edge of the city. Muu introduced everyone one by one. There were over a dozen Fanalis, each more enthusiastic than the last at the chance to show off. They barreled over trees, not paying any mind to the twigs and leaves that ended up tangled in their manes, and wrestled each other until the pavement turned to gravel under their feet.

“Could you be a little more gentle, Razol? We just fixed that last week,” Muu said, his voice quiet against the howling laughter of his fighting teammates.

“Sorry, Captain! You know me!” She yelled back, screeching laughter she was thrown against a tree by another Fanalis.

“Lowering your guard to chat? Thought you were better than that!”

“Shut it, Lo’lo!”

It was a more intense training session than a human like Hakuryuu could take, that was for sure. Everyone but Muu had already been thrown hard enough to break a few bones, but soon got up and back to fighting.

“Aren’t you gonna fight?” Judar asked Muu.

“Oh, no. I might get hurt.”

Judar bit back laughter. “To think that such a big guy’s scared of a bruise. I don’t think you guys _can_ get hurt.”

“I’m only a half-blooded Fanalis,” Muu said. “I’m not as strong as they are. But I look just like them, so it’s easy to forget. Sometimes they throw me against a tree all the same.” 

Judar glanced Muu over. He was just as big and burly as the other Fanalis, and his hair was just as red. Judar wasn’t sure that Muu was telling the truth. Either he was a Fanalis or he wasn’t. And he clearly was.

“I wanna see you fight. If they’re too strong, I can fight you.”

Muu laughed. “There’s no need for that. It wouldn’t do for you to get hurt, either.”

“I wouldn’t get hurt. I have a borg.”

“…Well, if you’d really like, then I suppose we could spar,” Muu said. He drew his sword when Judar nodded. Muu’s sword was almost too small for how huge he was in comparison, but when he held it up his blankly polite expression faded and he studied Judar intently.

Judar hoped he’d insulted Muu’s pride as a Fanalis enough for him to take it seriously.

“Are you ready?” Muu asked.

Judar pulled out his staff. “Of course. Who do you think I am?”

When Muu lunged forward, sword moving far more fluidly than he would’ve thought possible from such a large man, it hit Judar’s borg with a crack. It didn’t break, but it was scratched. That was more than he’d ever been able to say for a human.

Muu was right. They were strong. If a half-bred Fanalis could scratch his borg, the Fanalis Corps could break it if they surrounded him. They could win entirely without the help of Reim’s military technology if he gave them the chance.

Judar jumped back with gravity magic. Flying would be cheating, but it wasn't like Muu couldn’t jump. He studied the nearby rukh’s composition. The only moisture was from the sea on the other side of the city. Low effort ice would melt fast. Thunder would be more efficient.

A nagging voice in the back of his head reminded him that he was there to see what Muu could do, not there to show off. Any showing off would be used against him should they go to war.

At least that’s what Hakuryuu would say. He’s heard enough nagging from Hakuryuu to know in advance.

He settled for wind magic.

The same tornadoes that had been effective diversions against Kouen’s army swept Muu up easily and sent him flying backwards. He regained his balance in seconds.

“Captain!?”

“We’re just sparring, it’s okay!” Muu reassured his troops. He turned back to Judar. “That wind’s pretty fancy. But how fast can it move?”

In seconds he was back at Judar’s side, sword slashing a thick crack into his borg.

Muu didn’t retreat back to safety once he was close enough to touch. He took his time pushing his sword forward, even flashing a proud smile.

It occurred to Judar that Muu didn’t realize that the borg was only solid with the intention to harm its user. He would have no problem harming Muu from inside it.

It’d show Muu not to underestimate him.

Judar gripped his staff until his knuckles were white. His eyes flicked across Muu’s armor - no gaps. His arms were more vulnerable.

With strength magic, his staff could pierce skin. One movement was all it took. It was no different from using an ice spear. He didn’t take pleasure in Muu’s pained gasp but smiled with triumph at his victory.

“Looks like even Fanalis aren’t invincible,” Judar said. He pulled his staff out of Muu’s arm. It hadn’t gone in deep, only barely drawing blood even though he’d been pushing with the full intent to impale - it wasn’t like he had muscles like Muu did. Most of the damage he’d done was to Muu’s pride.

That was fine. Maybe they could even spar again. It was fun having a target for once.

“I wasn’t expecting that,” Muu admitted. “Titus uses a rapier as a staff but would never use it to stab. So I assumed you wouldn’t either.”

“Amature mistake. Me and Titus aren’t so similar, you know.”

“…Yes. It seems so. I apologize if I’ve offended you.”

Judar smiled. Muu’s response was coldly polite. It was the same bullshit Hakuryuu fed people he didn’t like.

Whether Muu liked him or not was irrelevant. Titus wouldn’t take another person’s dislike as reason to stay away, so it wasn’t like it mattered that he’d gotten a hit in on Muu.

Hakuryuu was more pleased with Judar’s performance than Judar had expected him to be when he bragged about it that night. He listened, clearly amused by Judar’s overdramatic recounting of the events. It was more interesting than what he’d done all day and it showed by the way the smile didn’t leave his face even when he pointed out that Judar had already contradicted himself in his storytelling by the three minute mark.

It got the point across. That was what mattered. Not that Muu had only flown five feet instead of fifty.

“So even Fanalis are no match for you, are they?” Hakuryuu asked. Though his tone was teasing, his smile was honest. So Judar nodded.

“They’re no problem. If they’re the best Reim’s got, they’re not nearly as tough as they act.”

“He could have been going easy on you,” Hakuryuu reminded him.

“Yeah, but I was going easy too. Didn’t use ice or thunder or anything. So it evens out.”

“Mm. As expected,” Hakuryuu said. He ran his hand through Judar’s hair, fingernails curling over his scalp in a pleasant way.

Judar had done everything right by him even by taking matters into his own hands, even if he’d put off talking to Titus, and it showed in his calm face. Hakuryuu trusted Judar to not reveal too much of his ability to enemies by now. No trace remained of the anxiety that used to cloud over his face when Judar acted on his own.

Judar leaned forward into a short kiss that Hakuryuu returned without hesitation. 

“You’ll talk with Titus tomorrow, won’t you?” Hakuryuu asked.

“Guess so. Only got out of it today because I got in a fight with the big guy anyway.”

“Do you not want to catch up?” Hakuryuu asked.

“We don’t really have anything to say to each other. That’s all.”

“It’ll be more useful if you can think of something,” Hakuryuu said.

“Yeah.”

Hakuryuu frowned at his unenthusiastic response. “You must have at least wondered if Titus survived coming to land.”

“Sure, but that’s about it. Now that I know, it doesn’t matter.”

Hakuryuu sighed. Not like he was annoyed - it was more like he wasn’t sure how to express what he was trying to convey and was frustrating himself.

Judar leaned back against him, pushing until Hakuryuu lay down on the bed. He looked like he was afraid he was going to make Judar angry for how he withdrew. He didn’t like it when Hakuryuu did that.

“What is it, Hakuryuu?”

“I, um… I got the impression from your memories you showed me with your clairvoyance magic that Titus was your closest friend in your colony. Was that wrong?”

“We aren’t friends. We never have been.”

“You didn’t have any then.”

“Like _you_ did,” Judar said.

Hakuryuu offered a small smile. “I should push you off for that.”

“I could say the same of you for thinking I’d be friends with Titus. I told you before, I’m fine with just you.”

Hakuryuu tensed so slightly that Judar wouldn’t have noticed if not for his rukh’s sudden activity. It was rare that Judar couldn’t place what sort of emotion Hakuryuu’s rukh was reacting to. He wondered if Hakuryuu had figured out he was looking at his rukh and been putting effort into hiding it. Or maybe he didn’t know what was bothering him about it either.

“I have to get up early for training,” Hakuryuu said. “Be sure to talk to Titus tomorrow.”

Judar sighed. “You don’t have to keep telling me. When have I ever ignored what you asked?”

\---

Spending time with Titus wasn’t as bad as Judar liked to make it out to be.

They had a lot in common, most of all that they were sirens in a world of humans - there were things they could talk about together that no one else would understand. They could also speak in a mix of Torran and the human language that no one else could understand. Some words were just better in one or the other. They didn’t always agree on which words those were.

Titus wasn’t as used to life on the surface as Judar was and had never gotten to talk about it with another siren before. Everything was an opportunity to point out the strange quirks humans had that didn’t mesh well with what they grew up thinking, like the way some humans lied and cheated as they gambled and weren’t satisfied even in marriage.

“Oh, but that’s just how they are,” Titus kept saying. “I can’t fault them for it. They’re just different.”

“You can cheat at gambling too, you know,” Judar said. “No one’s gonna stop you.”

“I could win without cheating! I just don’t have the time to spend trying.”

Judar rolled his eyes. In other words, Titus was too competitive to admit to losing and too honest to cheat in a way humans couldn’t. Typical.

“The only way to win those things is to not play, anyway,” Titus said.

“We don’t even have gambling in Kou.”

“Really? I think the people would revolt if we banned it here.”

Once Judar got over how much talking to Titus made him feel like he was back in the ocean, it was almost enjoyable trying to describe tastes in terms of giant isopods and fabrics as textures of rocks. It was a secret game that no human could play, and by its nature they had to stay far out of human earshot.

“The human world is so full of wonders,” Titus said. “There are miniature isopods here, did you know? You can find them under stones, along with these creatures with what must be hundreds of legs.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes! But they’re quite small, just as the isopods are. It’s a good thing we have the sun to see with up here. Otherwise we’d never be able to find them.”

Judar was pretty sure not being able to see weird bugs wouldn’t be his first regret if he couldn’t see. Titus didn’t leave time to comment.

“Oh, and have you been to see an orchestra yet? Human music is so beautiful. I would like to learn how to play the lyre as well, if possible. Hearing it makes me want to sing along.”

“Have you heard them sing?” Judar asked. “Most of them can’t carry a note.”

“Maybe they just need practice. I’m sure they have just as much potential as we do,” Titus said.

“Come on, just admit it. We’re better singers than they are.”

“I’ve been trying to teach Muu how to sing. Though we haven’t made much… well, _any_ progress, to be honest.”

Judar laughed. He couldn’t imagine what kind of singing voice Muu had. Hell, he couldn’t imagine what kind of singing voice Hakuryuu had. He didn’t really want to find out, either. Not if other humans were anything to go by.

Being on land had done nothing to dull Titus’s optimism. Believing that people should be trusted on principle should have been a short lived nativity, but with Titus, it was a lifelong condition.

“He said that our singing voices could lure any human to sea,” Titus said. “What a funny thing to say!”

“What? So he knows?”

“Yes. His whole family knows,” Titus said. “At first I was nervous about telling them, but it turned out well. I wish I would have told them sooner.”

“You told that muscle guy’s whole family you’re a siren? You have a death wish or something?

“Having trust isn’t a bad thing,” Titus objected. “And as you can see, they took it well.”

“You got lucky,” Judar said. “I see siren scales in the market all the time. I'm sure they’re all idiots who told lots of people just like you did.”

“Nonsense. They must have been sirens who tried to speak to humans with hate rather than love. I trust Muu’s family.” Titus paused, looking at Judar curiously. “Don’t you trust him? Emperor Hakuryuu, I mean.”

“Hakuryuu knows I’m a siren,” Judar said.

“Why are you saying I shouldn’t have told anyone then?”

“I didn’t _tell_ him,” Judar said simply. “Did you tell that little kid too? She doesn’t look too good at keeping secrets.”

Titus raised an eyebrow at the change in subject, but obliged. “She’s smarter than you think.”

Whether she was smart or not, Judar didn’t know or particularly care. But she was the first human child he’d interacted with, and he took notes accordingly. Next time he wouldn’t be caught off guard on human kid facts.

Marga studied daily, then came to show Titus her progress when they returned after touring the city.

She liked to run and play ball instead of play with dolls, which was a problem: her health wasn’t good enough for her to enjoy her interests for long. When she began coughing, Titus rushed to her side and cast life magic. It wasn’t perfect but kept her from her deathbed, which was where she’d be without it.

“It didn’t take long for me to figure out the spell,” Titus told Judar after helping Marga return to her room to rest. “It’s similar to the one we use on our lungs, after all. I’m trying to find a spell that’ll fix it for good, but they just don’t work like that. I don’t even know what kind of spell to start looking for - do any alter a body permanently?”

“Some do,” Judar said without thinking. “I’ve seen one. Didn’t turn back even… ah, never mind.”

“I know about the isolation barrier,” Titus said. “Scheherazade told me after you left.”

“…Right. Well, there’s magic that doesn’t stop even in that.”

Titus looked hopeful.

“I don’t know how to use it,” Judar said.

“Maybe not, but I’m sure the two of us can figure it out if it really does exist,” Titus said, eyes sparkling at the prospect. “Marga would be so happy. She’d finally be able to keep up with the other kids her age… Tell me more about this magic you saw.”

What Judar could explain wasn’t very helpful, but Titus wasn’t discouraged.

“There are scrolls on magic in the imperial library. I can get in, so let’s look around.”

Judar grinned when Titus turned away. He really wouldn’t have to do any of the hard work with Titus around.

The librarian pointed Titus towards the scrolls on magic without batting an eye but did a double take at Judar.

“He’s my guest,” Titus said. “No worries.”

The librarian nodded hesitantly and allowed him to follow Titus to the airy top floor magic section.

“It’s way brighter in here than Kou’s library.”

“Everything’s brighter in Reim, or so they say. It’s our thing.”

“When’d you become an honorary citizen of Reim?”

Titus blinked. “Muu did my paperwork. He said he did it for his friends in the Fanalis Corps already, so it was no problem.”

Judar sighed. He was trying to make fun of Titus, but as usual, it didn’t work. The worst part of spending time together was that Titus would take a compliment without a second thought but never seemed to notice when something was supposed to be mean.

The second worst part was how fast of a reader Titus was. It was irritating being surpassed in such a short amount of time. Still, Titus didn’t take notice.

A few scrolls were Torran instructions of spells Judar recognized - those to make a body appear human. “What’s up with these?” Judar asked. “I got the feeling no one here but the muscle head’s family knew about this.”

“They don’t, for the most part. Humans don’t understand spells in the way we do - what makes sense to us as being shorthand for ‘use a basic life magic spell in conjugation with strength magic, pressurizing the body at equal rates’ isn’t so easy for humans. I don’t think they even know the types of magic, so things like this - a compound of types one and three, diffused by type seven, with optional use of the sixth type for use in close quarters—”

“What kind of a spell is _that_?”

“Aberrant. Sounds nasty, doesn’t it? Learning it may make for a fun challenge.”

“…Let me see.”

'Nasty' was putting it nicely. It was the exact kind of magic Scheherazade was trying to avoid entering the colony by putting up her barriers. Judar pocketed the scroll.

Judar looked across the library’s sun-warmed shelves. He was supposed to be looking for Reim’s military secrets too. It was just difficult to find an excuse to leave the magic section without making Titus suspicious.

Then again, Titus was pretty gullible. It didn’t have to be a good excuse.

Judar forced a yawn. “We’re gonna be at this all day for how many scrolls there are.”

“If we stay focused we may find it faster,” Titus said.

“If we just do this for another hour I’ll fall asleep.”

“Well… if you’d like, we could get lunch. That might wake you up.”

That wasn’t exactly what he was going for, but Judar shrugged and agreed. He’d just check out the other sections once they got back. If only he knew exactly how likely it was that Titus would join the Fanalis Corps in the event of a war. It’d make it easier to know how much effort he needed to put into this stuff.

Titus treated Judar’s pickiness like more of a challenge to find something he did like instead of a challenge of making him like vegetables, which meant Judar had honeyed carob and walnuts. The approach to pickiness in Reim was to pour honey over all sorts of things, which suited Judar fine for now. He’d definitely get sick of it if he lived here, though.

Titus ate more typical foods - stews and bread.

“How can you eat that stuff?” Judar asked, motioning to the bread. “Feels like eating sand.”

“Does not! It’s more like eating a pillow. So fluffy and warm.”

Judar wrinkled his nose. He couldn’t imagine eating a pillow either.

After lunch they went back into the library. Judar made a point of following the windows in a circle around the building.

It was weird how the building was a circle. Buildings in Kou were all edges.

He read topics from the edges of shelves, from growth statistics of the empire to foreign literature. Titus, following out of curiosity, was interested in the foreign literature shelves the most.

“Impressive how poetry is so popular in Kou,” Titus said. “Have you read any?”

“No way. That stuff makes no sense.”

“Really?” Titus picked up a scroll and unrolled it.

“See?”

Titus’ eyes ran up and down the text with a speed that rivaled Hakuryuu’s. “It reads like a song. Maybe you’re supposed to sing it?”

Judar shrugged. “I dunno. I don’t think Hakuryuu knows what you’re supposed to do with it either.”

“Does he not like to read?”

“He only reads stuff that’ll make him sound smart. Poetry makes no sense so it doesn’t count.”

Titus laughed. “He told you that? And here I thought Emperor Hakuryuu was the studious type.”

“He’d never admit it! He just says it’s frivolous and a waste of time. And he’s right, it’s not like it’s important stuff.”

“Stubborn, isn’t he? Muu would just say he doesn’t get it.”

Judar opened his mouth to reply before he realized he was getting distracted by the wrong thing. He was supposed to be looking into Reim’s imperial library’s archives, not talking about Hakuryuu. It didn’t help that Titus’s interest was genuine.

Judar gave up after another half hour of trying and failing to not get distracted. Military history led to Titus asking about what fighting a war was like. Statistics led to Titus marvelling at how many more people lived in Kou than Reim.

It was about then that Judar got fed up with it. He let Titus wander back over to the Torran section and sat down to continue searching for useful spells.

Every now and then they still got distracted by cool spells, like a scroll describing how to use clairvoyance magic on the forgetful or a spell to mask one’s appearance with light magic, but after a few hours it became apparent that the closest thing to what Gyokuen had used was a subtype called alchemic magic that neither of them had ever heard of.

“It still seems to wear off,” Titus observed. “Otherwise it’s very close to what you’ve described.”

“Maybe it’s just an another version of this? I guess we better learn it to be sure.”

Titus nodded. “Definitely. I just worry that’s too dangerous to use for Marga. It says here that it can take months to wake up after being the target of large scale use of it.”

“Could always use it on fish to test.”

“True… well, we better get to work then,” Titus said and rolled up both their notes, through Judar’s aimless scribbles could barely be called that. He just folded and pocketed the scrolls he really wanted when Titus wasn’t looking. “I want to make sure Marga’s alright first, so let’s go back home for a break. Today is the day Emperor Hakuryuu agreed to come over. Maybe he’ll finish early.”

“Doubt it. He won’t come back early unless he gets another limb lopped off.”

Titus shot him an odd look as they climbed back down the two flights of stairs to the library’s entrance. “Your strange taste in jokes aside, how did he lose that arm?”

“Hey, it doesn’t bother him. And he got in a fight with an old friend or something. He won, of course.”

“Oh… I wouldn’t have guessed he was so aggressive. He seemed nice when I met him the other day.”

“Even I could seem that nice if I wanted to. It’s not hard.”

Marga greeted them at the door when they returned but her complexion hadn’t improved.

“What do you want for dinner?” Titus asked. “I’ll be sure to ask the chef to make it.”

Marga scrunched up her nose. “I’m not hungry,” she said, then coughed a couple times. Judar noticed Titus’s magoi flowing to Marga from the hand on her head.

Just magoi wasn’t as effective as using magic on her. Judar wondered if Marga knew that it was something Titus wouldn’t be able to do forever, hence the hiding it.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to eat more than a few bites if you don’t want to,” Titus said.

“Well… is it okay if we have goose then?” Marga asked. “Just so I can eat a few bites?”

“Of course. I’ll be sure to tell him,” Titus said and gave Marga a quick hug. “We’ll eat what you don’t, so don’t worry.”

“Hakuryuu’s not here yet, is he?” Judar asked her.

“No. Muu’s done with work for the day, though. He said Yaqut wore everyone out early.”

Titus smiled. “I’m glad he’s feeling well enough to wear Muu out. He looked terrible last I saw him. Let me say hello to Muu and then we can go.”

“Where are you going?” Marga asked.

Titus had already left to talk to Muu, so Judar answered. “The beach, probably.”

Marga gasped. “Can you bring me a seashell?”

“Uh… sure?”

“Thank you!” Marga said, then coughed again.

Once turned into twice, which turned into three, then four times… then she fell gracelessly to the floor to clutch her stomach. If she continued, she’d probably throw up, or worse.

Judar sighed. She really should be dead already. If Titus’s spell only worked for a couple minutes, it was just prolonging the inevitable.

Judar took his staff from his pocket and cast the spell she needed. Even if it was inevitable, he was trying to get some more work out of Titus. Marga dying wouldn’t help with that. She responded well enough to the magic, and by the time Titus came back her coughing fit had mostly subsided.

“Alright, I’m ready - Marga? Are you alright?”

Marga nodded shakily. “Judar helped.”

“Oh… thank you,” Titus said, surprised but grateful, and crouched by Marga to feel her forehead. “You have a temperature.”

“Don’t worry about me…”

“You’re worth worrying about. Judar, you don’t mind staying in today, do you? We can build a pillow fort with Marga instead.”

Judar pocketed his staff. “What’s a pillow fort?”

Titus smiled. “Marga and I will show you. With all the pillows in the house we’ll be able to make the most splendid pillow fort in the country.”

Titus gathered pillows and blankets from every corner of the house and brought them all to the dining hall to adorn the table with.

Putting it together wasn’t very fun and Judar didn’t see the appeal. He was more or less just staying because Hakuryuu was still training. But when Titus took a pillow and shoved it into Judar’s face, calling him an intruder and a knave, he understood that it was a challenge.

He couldn’t say no to a challenge. Especially not one from Titus. They’d been competing since Titus was first old enough to try to one-up him.

Soon the pillow fort was facing attacks from pillow swords and suffering heavy damage. Titus only barely erected a pillow shield in time to save the fall of the inner sheets.

Marga, unable to roughhouse with them, played strategist from within the fort. She beamed when Titus adequately defended the walls on her orders.

It was that scene that Hakuryuu came back to. Judar was sure he was going to be scolded for slacking, but instead he smiled and held his hand to his mouth to try to hide his laughter.

“Hey! I can’t just back down from a challenge!” Judar said.

“Do you want to play too?” Marga asked Hakuryuu.

“No… I have to change some bandages first,” Hakuryuu said. “Sorry. But I’m sure Judar will be happy to continue playing.”

Judar tossed his pillow at Titus’s face in a final surprise attack, then hurried over to Hakuryuu’s side. “Anyway! How was training?” He could smell blood, but that didn’t mean much with Hakuryuu. His pain tolerance was something else.

“Not bad,” Hakuryuu said. “I’ll show you my progress in a moment. They ran out of bandages at the colosseum, and I doubt they have them laying around in our room…”

“I know where they are,” Judar said. “Muscles showed me after I got his arm. And I can bandage you, too.”

“Do you even know how?”

“Do you know how many times I’ve watched you do it?” Judar countered.

“…Fine. If you’d like. Don’t make me redo it.”

They left Titus and Marga in the kitchen. The bandages were in a supply closet by a lounge. It wasn’t a large room, and the amount of furniture crammed into it only made it look smaller. Muu told him it was like that so members of the Fanalis Corps could all tend to their wounds at once.

Judar didn’t dress wounds in a particularly neat way, but it got the job done. This time a gash on Hakuryuu’s thigh looked the worst. “Those Yambala guys don’t really care if you make it out in one piece, do they?”

“I asked them to not go easy on me,” Hakuryuu said, hardly reacting to what Judar knew was a painful pressure on his leg as he wrapped a bandage around it. “Training would be pointless if they treated me as if I were fragile.”

“You just need to learn it so you can get magoi through your arm, right? What part of that involves stabbing a sword through your leg? They’ve gotta be having fun getting hits in on an emperor.”

Hakuryuu held up his prosthetic arm and curled the index finger and thumb as if he were holding onto a weapon. “It’s working,” he said. “Their methods are effective.”

Judar pushed Hakuryuu’s wooden fingers back to an open palmed posture. “Do it again.”

This time Judar watched as the magoi of Hakuryuu’s upper arm trickled through the inside of the wood all the way to the ball joints, then moved downward through the fingers. It was true magoi manipulation, the same a siren used to bring magoi to their hands to convert into magic with their staves.

“Not bad. Did you ever figure out why they know how to do this?”

“No. We don’t talk much, aside from what’s necessary.”

“As friendly as ever, aren’t you. You’ve got no right to nag at me about Titus,” Judar said. He tied a final knot around Hakuryuu’s leg, tugging it a few times to make sure it wouldn’t come undone the next time he had training. “Good as new.”

Judar stood and brushed his lips to Hakuryuu’s. Over the past couple days, they only spent time alone together for a brief few minutes after Hakuryuu returned from training and the time before they slept. Of course he had to take what chances he got.

“I’m surprised you’ve been getting along so well with Marga,” Hakuryuu said as Judar pulled away. “She seems to like you.”

“W, well… she’s a better kid than Aladdin and Titus were. Less troublesome.”

“Titus likes you, too. I think you’re better with kids than you realize.”

“She’s scared of you, though,” Judar said. Changing the topic was always a solid defense. “I’d hate to see how bad at dealing with them you are.”

“Are you embarrassed?” Hakuryuu asked, standing to follow Judar out of the room. “It’s not a bad skill, really.”

Judar didn’t miss Hakuryuu’s attempt at changing the topic from his own lack of skill. “So you really are bad with them!”

When they returned to the dining hall where they’d left Titus and Marga, they were immediately shushed by Titus. Marga had fallen asleep inside the fort, surrounded by sturdy walls of pillows.

“I’m going to stay here with her a little longer,” Titus whispered. “In case she has problems with breathing while she sleeps.”

“So we’re not training until tomorrow,” Judar mumbled.

“If she’s better by then,” Titus whispered back. “Her health comes first.”

“She’s ill?” Hakuryuu asked.

Titus nodded. “Chronic. We were going to practice a type of magic we found that might help, but…”

“I’m sure Judar can manage practicing on his own,” Hakuryuu said, smiling as Judar bit back a groan.

Judar left for Reim’s shores at Hakuryuu’s urging. Hakuryuu probably wasn’t invested in helping the kid either, but any kind of magic that could be used for healing filled a gap in his knowledge. Not only that, but it was useful as magic to experiment with changing his body.

The shores of Reim were different from that of Kou: the sand was grittier under his feet, bits of tiny broken shells almost outnumbering grains of sand. At first Judar found it annoying that Titus got to sit and chat with Hakuryuu while he had to train but his annoyance soon faded. Despite his and Titus’s combined notes on the topic of alchemic magic taken from standalone sentences across dozens of scrolls, it was proving to be a worthy challenge.

And complaining aside, Judar did love a challenge.

Since he wouldn’t be able to tell if a fish’s gills were stronger or weaker if he tried using alchemic magic like Titus wanted, he tried much more creative experiments. Turning a starfish into a sea urchin was his first goal. It wasn’t hard to find a starfish, but he accidentally killed it before it even grew a sixth leg, judging by its rukh. It’d be hard to tell without it. Starfish didn’t do a whole lot of moving even when they were alive.

The second starfish he found didn’t become a sea urchin, either - with effort, its limbs elongated until they were so brittle that when he picked it up to check his progress it crumbled.

By sunset the third starfish had seven legs, its two new growths protruding upwards. Judar grinned at his progress, wiping the sweat and saltwater from his forehead. He was too hungry to try on a fourth starfish, but he was sure Hakuryuu would be impressed with his progress as long as he could get the mutant starfish back in one piece.

Just as Judar was about to open a transfer circle to Titus’s spacious entry hall, he nearly stepped on a large scallop shell. It stood out easily, pink and orange against the dull brown of the sand. He picked it up, impressed by the fact it hadn’t yet broken like the other large shells of the beach. He pocketed it and opened the transfer circle.

Judar was hit with the smell of nearly-finished poultry as soon as he entered. The temperature rose the closer he got to the kitchen, changing from crisp and fresh evening air to the warm, almost stuffy atmosphere the house got before dinner.

It was very different from living at the palace, where he asked someone to cook for him whenever he felt like eating and tended to eat either alone or with Hakuryuu on one of the increasingly few days he was finished with work early and they could eat together. Titus’ house had a crowd at every meal.

That was what made it vacation. Hot food at the same time every day, Hakuryuu finished with work long before it was served, even though today Judar was still working right up until he ate.

Oh well. Working on alchemic magic was actually pretty fun.

Hakuryuu was watching the chef cook. His methods differed from Hakuryuu’s own enough to warrant his interest, even if he was bashful enough to pretend to be focusing on cleaning while asking about it instead of watching his every move, pen in hand. Marga had woken up and was sitting at the table talking slowly, taking her time to breathe between sentences, to Titus who listened patiently. Judar placed his seven-legged starfish in front of them triumphantly.

Marga gasped. “Is this a seashell?”

“No,” Judar said. “It’s a starfish with seven legs.” He pulled the scallop shell from his pocket. “This is a seashell.”

Marga looked between the two, her mouth wide open in amazement. It was clear that Titus had never taken her to the beach. One-upping Titus felt good.

“Where did you find this?” Titus asked, poking the starfish.

“I made it! I mean, I did find it. With five legs. But I improved it.”

By then Hakuryuu noticed his presence and came to check the starfish as well. “Why a starfish?”

“Uh, because it’s cool. And it’ll be even cooler when I make one into a sea urchin.”

“You can really do that?” Marga asked.

“Of course I can! I can do anything,” Judar said proudly.

“Eventually,” Hakuryuu added. “After lots of practice.” Judar elbowed him.

“I’d like to see you try this,” Judar said, motioning to his starfish. “You might’ve made more progress than I thought you would, but you’ve still got years of catching up to do before you’re as good as me.”

“If you’re trying to make this a competition of strengths, you’d better start learning how to use a sword now. I’m doubtful that a few years would save you from your clumsiness.”

Oh, what Judar would do to wipe the haughty look off Hakuryuu’s face. “Watch it, you! I could just use gravity magic on the sword anyway. No need to touch it.”

“You’re admitting defeat already, unwilling to try? Here I thought you were better than that.”

“Well! If my arms got all muscly from training them, my jewelry wouldn’t fit! So it’s fine to use gravity magic!” Judar forgot exactly where they were until Titus’s muffled laughter broke him out of it. Hakuryuu immediately looked away, embarrassed.

“Sorry,” Titus said. “I’ve just never seen anyone go at it like you two before.”

Marga was less amused. “Are they fighting?” She asked, not quite managing to whisper but trying to.

“No, no. The opposite, I’d say,” Titus half-whispered back. “But don’t tell them I said that. I think it’s supposed to be a secret.”

“…I, um, will set the table,” Hakuryuu said, fumbling over his words as he tried to think up an excuse at the same time.

Judar rolled his eyes and pulled up the chair across from Marga. He tried to ignore Titus’ piercing gaze.

“You’re pretty close,” Titus said.

“An emperor needs a confidant,” Judar said. “And a magician.”

Titus laughed, but dropped it while they ate.

Titus ‘dropping’ something was never a good thing because it never really happened. It just meant it’d be back later from a new angle later.

This time, ‘later’ was five minutes after dinner.

“When I came here, I was told that, due to her acquaintance with the Alexius family, some of Lady Scheherazade’s notes are still in the library. I meant to check them out sooner, but I’ve been really busy with Marga and helping the emperor out…” 

Even if he tried to pretend it wasn’t, the truth was that this was what Judar had been dreading most since seeing Titus again on land. Of course there would be something like that. There always was with those two - they were birds of a feather, as the human saying went.

“So you want me to read them with you,” Judar said. “Sounds like a waste of time. You know how Scheherazade is.”

“Lady Scheherazade has mastered all seven types of magic, unlike someone I know. I’m sure we’d learn lots.”

Judar didn’t have to be a genius to know where this was heading. But for Hakuryuu who had never met Scheherazade, Titus’s intentions weren’t so obvious. “Is Scheherazade someone you know?”

“Yeah,” Judar said. “I thought I mentioned her.”

“Is she the ‘old witch,’ by any chance?”

“Judar! That’s terrible!” Titus said. “Lady Scheherazade has been nothing but good to us.”

“She’s Titus’s mom,” Judar told Hakuryuu. “He’s protective.”

“She’s not just my ‘mom.’ I’m her clone, and you know that.”

“Yeah, but humans can’t do that stuff. Hakuryuu wouldn’t understand.” Judar pointed to Hakuryuu’s blank expression. “See? He can’t grasp it at all.”

“It’s simple,” Titus said. “Lady Scheherazade created me without the help of anyone else. So that makes me her clone. Does that help?”

“Um… yes, thank you.” His expression was just as blank as before Titus tried to help.

“Scheherazade’s crush has been rotting for centuries,” Judar said. “So when she wanted a kid she had to do it all herself, which is easy for us. Gotta be weird to be the kid of that, though. I don’t think it’s that common.”

This time Hakuryuu seemed to understand. “I’d like to read her notes as well,” he said.

“No, you don’t want to. They’re probably not even notes. She’s unbelievably sappy.”

“To a human, our lives must read like fantasy novels,” Titus said. “Quite long ones, I might add. But I expect Emperor Hakuryuu has the interest to not mind.”

“I have reason to be interested,” Hakuryuu said. “I’m half siren.”

“You are? Judar never told me!” Titus shot an accusing look at Judar despite knowing damn well why he never said so. “Of course you should read it then. Judar, how rude of you to try to keep his heritage from him.”

Judar frowned. “I already told him everything he wanted to know. It’s not like hearing Scheherazade’s sob stories would be life changing or anything. They’re boring. Hakuryuu, you shouldn’t bother.”

“Why don’t you want me to?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Titus said. “I’m sure you’ll understand once you read them. You both have free time in the evening daily, correct? Let’s take the opportunity for an evening story, just as Scheherazade used to tell us daily.”

“Can’t wait,” Judar said monotonously.

“You won’t need to,” Titus assured him, missing his sarcasm just like always. “Let’s get started after dinner. I’ll show you the way.”

Food tasted worse with Titus holding Scheherazade’s garbage over his head. Judar didn’t bother trying to hide his bad mood and glared at everything on the way, from well-maintained bricks to candles and lamps to doors to Hakuryuu. With any luck, they’d already be dust. But when did Judar ever have any luck?

The library made a pass at being well-lit, with paned windows covering the majority of a wall, but the sun was already setting for the day - the blue light of dusk was all that could be spared to light the room. Titus wasted no time casting light magic to fix the issue.

“I’m not too sure where they’ll be,” Titus said. “Muu and his sister don’t come in here too often, but there are only twenty shelves or so. It shouldn’t take too long to find them.”

“If they’re even here,” Judar grumbled.

After about ten minutes of glancing over dusty scrolls, pretending to look, Judar gave up on that and sat at the library’s reading table. Its chairs were comfy enough but smelled just as dusty as the rest of the place. The smell and the artificial light, casting a tired yellow on the bookshelves and walls, made him want to do nothing more than sleep.

Titus soon noticed he was slacking and sat down across from him.

“Tired?” Titus asked, dumping an armful of discolored scrolls on the table.

Judar glared. He knew he was being petty. He just didn’t care.

Titus frowned. “I’m not going to apologize for letting Emperor Hakuryuu come, just so you know.”

“I’m not expecting you to. I just don’t like you.”

Titus didn’t respond, instead setting to the task of untying and reading scrolls. It didn’t take long to decide some weren’t right, but others Titus kept reading for several minutes, clearly interested by the subject.

Judar didn’t care for any subject he had to read a scroll to learn about, so he closed his eyes and resumed trying to take a nap sitting up. He dozed off once or twice before Hakuryuu tapped him on the shoulder, breaking him out of his half-asleep state.

“We can look more tomorrow,” he said.

Judar shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. Libraries are easy to sleep in.”

If Hakuryuu had figured out the reason for Judar’s bad mood, he didn’t show it - his rukh wasn’t annoyed, and he remained ready to leave if Judar prefered to sleep. Judar assumed Hakuryuu was content with his progress on alchemic magic, and that was why he was willing to postpone more reading.

After looking at a few more scrolls each, Titus and Hakuryuu agreed to continue looking the next day after training. Judar went to bed with the vague hope that Hakuryuu would get tired of looking (something that never happened), drop his curiosity about sirens (something that also, as of yet, hadn’t happened), and decide to focus all his energy only on training (as if that would happen: Hakuryuu never had a problem focusing energy he didn’t have, much less energy he did have).

The only reason he was looking with them in the first place was to keep Titus from saying too many unnecessary things. They were in Reim to scope out its use as an enemy, not read. 

Judar woke up with the full intention to kick Titus’s ass at alchemic magic. There was no better revenge than beating a so-called flawless magician at magic.

Titus was eating breakfast with Marga when Judar entered the kitchen. Judar remembered Titus’s words from the day before - unless Marga was healthy enough to be left on her own, Judar would be practicing alone again.

He took a bite of a pear. The texture was just as wrong on his tongue as the last pear he ate, but he was getting tired of figs and dates.

When Marga finished eating, Titus sent her off to her lessons.

“Can’t use her as an excuse to not practice today,” Judar said. “Didn’t think you’d make her go to her lessons, though.”

“She feels better if she has something to do,” Titus said. “I can’t afford to wait any longer. I’ll petition the emperor for healers for her. I’ve already looked inside the country, but maybe someone outside will be able to help her.”

“You’re pretty determined.”

“Of course I am. I love her. I want to make sure she can live the life she wants.”

“But she’s not really your daughter. She’s not even a siren.”

“That doesn’t matter. What matters is that there’s something I can do now for her, before it’s too late. I know that to us whether Marga dies this year or fifty years from now might feel the same since we’ll remember it as a short period of time regardless. But for her this is her only chance at life, and I want her to enjoy it as much as possible.”

“So you’re still gonna skip today. To petition the emperor.”

Titus nodded. “I’ll be back by evening, though. I’m confident that we’ll be able to find Scheherazade’s notes today.”

“If they even exist.”

“They do,” Titus assured him. “And I won’t let you skip out on reading them, either. She doesn’t want us to make the same mistakes as her, and I want to hear her side of the story as it was then. Not only as it is now after so many years have passed. So… I’ll see you guys then, okay?”


	24. Chapter 24

Hakuryuu returned from his magoi manipulation training with a limp.

“What’d you do this time?”

“Allowed my knee to be slashed,” Hakuryuu said evenly. “It’s already been set and bandaged.”

Judar hummed his acknowledgement. If it was already set and bandaged, that meant it was too bad to walk back with originally.

Hakuryuu didn’t let allow much pain to show on his face as usual. Judar shrugged and let it be. If Hakuryuu had the judgement to know when to get an arm amputated, he trusted his judgement that his knee was fine to walk on.

“Let me see your progress,” Judar said.

Hakuryuu obliged. Every day he was making considerable progress and it showed. He’d figured out how to run magoi through his arm well enough that he moved onto using a spear to train - fumbling with moving it between his wooden fingers and allowing his opponent to close the distance was the cause of today’s injury.

“I’ve been using it with metal as well,” Hakuryuu said. “Magoi can strengthen metal and wood as well as be transferred in some capacity to others. I wish I would have known about it sooner.”

Judar watched as Hakuryuu poured liberal amounts of magoi into his spear as an example. After everything Judar had done for magoi, seeing something so careless annoyed him. 

“Did they mention that you’ll die if you transfer too much out?” He put his hand by Hakuryuu’s, pretending to check his progress, and transferred the some of the excess magoi into his own fingers. Hakuryuu probably didn’t know how to reuse what wasn’t burned off yet.

“Yes, of course,” Hakuryuu said, and frowned. “Though the effects only catch up after many years, according to them.”

“Maybe. Not sure how it works with humans since you have so little magoi. You can’t get magoi from the rukh, either. So it should be pretty limited for you.” Judar knew that how Hakuryuu used his magoi was his problem, not Judar’s. It was just annoying to see it go to waste after all the trouble he’d gone through.

Not that it mattered… even if he saved up his magoi for war, he’d probably deplete it in no time now that he knew how. Hakuryuu was just that kind of person. If it meant he’d win, he didn’t mind if it hurt himself. Judar shook the thoughts from his mind and let go of the staff.

Hakuryuu was looking at him with a frown like he understood that he was being lectured. He switch his staff to his other hand to let his prosthetic fall limply to his side.

“Do you want lunch?” Hakuryuu asked.

Judar shrugged. “If we can find something that isn’t bread, then yeah.”

“I can cook for you.”

Muu had claimed over and over that they were welcome in his home any time of day, and his goodwill was proven by telling Marga’s tudor to leave the door unlocked for them during the day. It was bad security in Judar’s opinion, but in Hakuryuu’s, it was free access to a kitchen fitted with various interesting ingredients he rarely, if ever, got the chance to use.

Polite as he claimed to be, he abandoned his reservations when he got the chance to show off.

Hakuryuu set to making lunch for himself and Judar - the Alexius cook only came for dinner when everyone was home. It was a little funny when Hakuryuu half-tripped into something trying too hard to hide his limp. Even better when he tried to hide his discomfort from bumping into things by pretending he never hit them in the first place. Judar’s annoyance had completely melted away after the third time he ran into something.

Titus returned with news not a quarter hour after Hakuryuu finished training for the day and dug into the food Hakuryuu had only just finished making without a second thought. “My meeting with the emperor went well. It seems there’s a famous clan of healers in Heliohapt that takes overseas cases.”

“Sirens? Or just humans?” Judar asked.

“I can’t be sure until I see them,” Titus said. “But they seem very good at what they do. I’d guess it’s real magic. Either way I’ll pay any price they ask if they can help.” Titus sighed, then forced a smile. “Shall we return to the library after lunch? It’s still light, so searching should be a bit easier.”

“Huh? Hey, there’s no point—”

“I haven’t changed my mind. I want to see them,” Hakuryuu said, and it was settled.

Titus led the way, pulling Judar by the arm along the way to make sure he didn’t try to run off. “Lady Scheherazade might know the spells we’re looking for, right? It’s worth a look. She knew transfer magic, after all.”

Judar didn’t respond. He’d almost gotten his hopes up with Hakuryuu’s injury, but he was more determined than that. Such a small thing wouldn’t make him lose interest even if Scheherazade had the least interesting story in the world.

He wasn’t sulking. He could read it all if it were just himself and Titus without thinking too hard. It was just annoying that they had to bring Hakuryuu. Titus could be so stubborn.

Judar didn’t bother checking the scrolls and sat down on an uncomfortable wood chair to watch them look.

Hakuryuu continued to limp as he looked through the unlabelled shelves, and as much as he tried to hide it, walking on it seemed to be making his injury worse. It showed by the way he kept a hand on the bookshelves to steady himself while he moved and the slightly longer steps his right leg took compared to his left.

“It’s not often that I see you concerned about someone else,” Titus commented while dropping off an arm full of scrolls to look through. “And don’t tell me I’m misreading your rukh. You’re easier to figure out than Aladdin, you know.”

Judar watched Hakuryuu finger through the old and peeling scrolls, his rukh fully unaware of their low conversation. “I’m not concerned. He can take care of himself. He’s even stronger than he looks, you know. A little scratch won’t kill him.”

Titus laughed softly. It reminded Judar of the way Scheherazade laughed, making him feel like he was about to be scolded. But Titus wasn’t the type to scold, and instead smiled. “I didn’t notice a scratch on his body. They’re all already bandaged tightly. You saw to that.”

Judar pushed Titus for that.

“It’s been fun seeing this side of you,” Titus continued. “Aladdin would be shocked to hear about how much of a sap you can be, complementing Emperor Hakuryuu every time someone else so much as mentions him… oh, wait, you did that in our colony too. Have you told him how much you admire him?”

“Didn’t you have scrolls to be looking for?” Judar asked. It was a last ditch effort to change the conversation and Titus knew and ignored it.

“It didn’t sound like you make much of a habit of it while I was talking to him yesterday. Why, he had no idea you’d said that his food was better than what any of the palace cooks could do! He was quite embarrassed when I told him. You should be more honest. I’m sure it’d make him happy to hear it from you.”

“You stupid fish! Know when to shut up!” Judar said and tried covering Titus’s mouth himself. Titus dodged but followed his eyes to Hakuryuu, who was headed their way.

Hakuryuu deposited his armful of scrolls in a neat row on the table. He pulled up a chair next to where Judar was sitting and slacking in searching. “These appear to be the ones you mentioned,” he said. “At the very least they all have the same handwriting.”

Titus was instantly distracted, as was Judar. He unrolled one and squinted at the faded writing. “Whe-n…” 

Hakuryuu looked at the scroll over Judar’s shoulder. “When I first came to the surface,” he quoted, “it was warmer than anything I had ever felt before, brighter than the largest gathering of rukh.”

“This must be it!” Titus said, standing to read.

“I knew Hakuryuu would find it before you did.”

“Shut it, you! Lady Scheherazade’s handwriting is very nice, isn’t it?”

“For being a blind old bat, maybe,” Judar said.

Titus kicked Judar under the table and took the scroll from Hakuryuu, eyes scanning it excitedly. “All in the human language, too… I wonder if she had trouble finding scrolls in Torran to learn the alphabet? It took me time to find them in the library as well.”

“You didn’t know how to read either?” Hakuryuu asked.

“Of course not. How could I, in a sea so dark? Oh, I wish I could show this to her. She would be so happy to see how well maintained they are,” Titus said, then sat back down to read. “‘Though my legs were shaking more with fear than excitement as I took my first steps toward the fading horizon, my heart was filled with wonder.

“‘How beautiful the human world was: though I saw it for no longer than a few minutes, dimmer and dimmer each time I blinked, it captivated me like nothing ever had before. The sounds of seagulls, each calling louder than the last. Cicadas singing during the day and crickets chirping during the night. Though I couldn’t see them, I could hear them, and the human world is the most beautiful sound I have ever heard. Even now I wonder why the elders made up worlds of fantasy to tell us of when the human world is both fantastic and real enough to touch.

“‘I am writing this from the safety of my new home, but even now I can recall. This world will change and grow and one day fade from my memory, so I will record it as it is now, as it was, and continue to write as it grows. The first day I spent in the human world was dreamlike, a sense that occasionally follows me even now…’”

Titus read and read until the end of the scroll fell to the ground and the Scheherazade of the scroll was haunted by the unknown life of the forest at night, and soon saved from her own fear by a man. By then Judar’s head had moved to rest on Hakuryuu’s shoulder, tired out from boredom and the slight confusion of listening to a story that was more prose than action.

It took a few minutes for Titus to find the next scroll out of the dozen or so they had to continue. If Scheherazade had so much fun in the human world, Judar thought she should’ve spent more time enjoying it and less time writing it down. Especially if she was just going to leave them all behind and return to the sea instead of reading them every now and then.

Titus found the next scroll and resumed reading.

“‘The howling continued long into the night, uninterrupted and growing ever closer. I had no confidence in my weak borg and tired legs and felt I would soon submit to death. Only once I had lost all hope was I saved, carried into the arms of a strong man and asked if I was alright before he even brought himself from danger’s reach. Though I could not see his face, I knew at once that he was as bright as the sun.’ Oh, this must be Pernadius!”

“She always said they met in a ‘grand castle,’ but it was really just a forest? How anticlimactic.” Judar wondered if she was purposely dramatizing it or if she really had forgotten after so long.

“Not everyone is as dramatic in reality as you, Judar,” Hakuryuu said. “Passed out from exhaustion after breaking into the palace—”

Judar hurriedly covered Hakuryuu's mouth with his hand. “Th, that's not what happened! I wasn’t passed out!”

Titus looked indignant. “And here you told me that you saved a human prince and made a fantastic entrance to the palace, revered by all.”

Hakuryuu pulled Judar’s hand off. “You aren’t the most truthful bunch, are you?”

Judar made a face at Titus which was returned before quickly. Then Titus’s face faltered and broke into laughter. “Sorry, Judar. But if you don’t want me to expose your lies, you shouldn’t lie so much!”

After some bickering, Titus continued reading. “‘From then on we spent many days and many nights together. I had learned the human language from my peers who learned it from their parents and my words were forlorn to his ears; he would laugh at my outrageously outdated phrases, but not leave before correcting me kindly.’ Oh, this happened to me as well. Muu said I sounded like his grandparents.”

Judar snickered. He knew that would happen. Either Titus didn’t notice or chose to ignore it, eager to continue reading.

“‘And then as quickly as I came to think of him as kind he revealed to me his unreliable tendencies, and at once I fell in love. I cherished every day, and yet the sun always set and I knew at the moment the crickets began to sing that our time together would not last. Though I don’t hold it against the crickets for telling me - their lovely sounds paint my fondest memories.’”

“Can’t we just skip to to the part where something happens?” Judar asked.

“There are ten volumes here alone,” Titus said. “Whether we skip around or not we’ll be here all day. And I for one want to read the true account of Scheherazade’s love story we’ve heard so much about.”

“Didn’t we come here to, you know, look for spells?”

Judar asked.

Hakuryuu betrayed him by agreeing that he wanted to hear it and it was settled - they spent hours pouring over her memoirs, not stopping to stretch or get snacks.

“‘Pernadius tells me the sun is far below the horizon, but I need no candle to recall the shape of a scroll and my room. He was so kind to offer that he lead me to bed, unable to understand my condition. I find that sweet. He is a suitable ruler for this country but is happy as a general on the outskirts to show more and more people the beauty of Reim. The more time I spend with him, the more dear he becomes to me. At times this makes me fearful.

“‘I have not touched him indecently. Sirens have no such urges. I have not given him so much power that he could overthrow the world. Sirens have no such right. I have not done anything wrong by our people. On the contrary, I wish that I could show them this brilliant place. Despite that, I feel that I am losing my love for the sea. Reim is not the land that I was born to, but here every day is warm and inviting. Years pass and my feelings do not dull. I have not given a scale as I was advised, but I still wish to stay here as long as I am able.

“‘The fact is that although I had many things of value in the ocean, none could rival the happiness I have gained by Pernadius’s side. I lived my life as a blur until I met him. That I can finally admit that is proof of the impact he has had on me. I am young yet, with less than one hundred years to my name. Falling in love with a human at this age should be a curse, but all I can do is smile.

“‘I will accept my fate by his side, but I will not worry him with the truth. He deserves a human who can match him in life and death. In return, I hope that he will allow me to watch over any children he has with the same fondness I have been allowed to watch his country with.’”

Hakuryuu was a better reader than Titus. He didn’t get distracted as easily and his voice was easier to relax to. Even so, his voice wavered with clear discomfort as he read on.

“Emperor Hakuryuu, is something wrong?” Titus asked.

“No… I’m fine. But this must be rather strange for you to listen to as her child.” 

Titus smiled. “Despite having the same blood, we’re both the same and very different. I can’t say that I don’t sympathize with her. But there are others who I’m sure could understand more.”

Judar’s eye twitched. “No one’s as sappy as Scheherazade. You’re the only one who comes close. The rest of us are way more sensible.”

Titus ignored him. “Would you like me to take over reading?”

“Please do,” Hakuryuu said. His voice was getting hoarse. He handed the scroll to Titus and sat back. 

Titus continued reading, but Judar zoned it out. His eyes wandered to Hakuryuu’s rukh.

Normally he liked the fact that it was so transparent. But right now he would’ve liked to see a little more restraint in the way it flitted about, clearly reacting to the story.

By the time they reached the end of Pernadius’s life, both their eyes were teary.

“Seriously?” Judar asked, not sure whether to laugh at them or groan. He expected that much from Titus, but he had no idea Hakuryuu was the type to get into love stories. Even if he wiped his eyes quickly and tried to steady his voice it was clear it’d made an impact.

Judar had only been half-listening, knowing the ending and not wanting to hear all the depressing details, but unwilling to leave Titus to talk to Hakuryuu freely.

“You’d be crying too if you were paying any attention!” Titus said. “It’s… Scheherazade’s feelings have reached me, so far into the future… Pernadius would be flattered to hear of her devotion. She gave him her scale as a final present as he lay on his deathbed, not even telling him what it meant! Because she didn’t want to trouble him with her feelings that he’d never understand! Is that not true devotion?”

“She’s no different from any other siren,” Judar said. “That level is easy for us to reach. The only thing impressive about it is how impressively bad her choice was. He doesn’t even sound like he was that great.”

“Isn’t she different?” Hakuryuu argued. “Even if people want to be devoted, many factors can get in the way.”

“Not for a siren. Devotion is carved more deeply into our minds than it is to humans,” Titus said. “I tried to explain it to Muu once, but he didn’t understand either…”

“Please explain it to me as well,” Hakuryuu said.

“We don’t have concubines or divorce or anything like that,” Titus said. “Just one partner who we happily devote our lives to, and typically they do the same. Scheherazade’s decision of selflessly devoting herself to a human without expecting him to return her feelings is more than many are capable of.”

“How do you know that taking a single partner over your lifetime isn’t just your colony’s culture?” Hakuryuu asked. “Other countries do things differently, so it may be the same for you. It isn’t necessarily something born from your biology.”

“All sirens are like this,” Titus said. “That’s a fact. Yunan has met many sirens in many colonies over the years and says sirens everywhere only give away one scale over their lives. We can’t help but to love deeply and wholly.”

“There are humans that love deeply as well.”

Titus smiled. “I think those humans must be happy, then. A deep love like Scheherazade’s must be a wonderful thing to experience.”

“…Perhaps. But in her case…”

Titus nodded. “Pernadius was the only one for her, despite being human. That’s what it means to give a scale away. To acknowledge that you’ll never love another person as much as you love them. But as she wrote, she’s happy to have experienced it. Not sad because he was a human. Even if she was unwilling at first, I know that even now when she tells stories of him her face lights up the sea more than even magic does.”

Hakuryuu pursed his lips, then excused himself with the promise that he would make tea, and Judar was left with Titus sobbing and pointing out all the times Scheherazade must have suffered watching her beloved and friends die before her. It was probably nothing more than a depressing fairy tale to Hakuryuu, but to Judar and Titus it was a view of what their futures held if they remained in the human world. 

But with eye-roll worthy writing.

“Even so, I’m glad to be here,” Titus said. “There’s no other place that I could have met Marga and Muu.”

“Nothing to do in our colony,” Judar said. “It doesn’t take being like Scheherazade. Anyone would’ve left.”

Hakuryuu arrived with their tea after Titus finally stopped sniffling, apologizing for how long it took. “It was difficult to find tea leaves,” he said. “Eventually a young woman helped me find them - they were nearly hidden.”

“That must have been Myron,” Titus said. “I bet she heard the emperor of Kou was staying around here and came running. Oh, and this tea was a gift from a foreign noble. We don’t have it often.” Titus took a sip of the steaming tea and sighed contentedly. “Really, no one in this house but me seems to like the taste, even if Myron pretends she does. Please, enjoy it and prove them wrong.”

Hakuryuu and Titus spoke distractedly as they sipped tea. First of the quality of the tea, then the different kinds in Kou, then about the various snacks that suited each type. All things that Judar had no interest in.

They were done now, right?

They already knew that Scheherazade wouldn’t have much of use in her notes.

The only point of this was to irritate him since the beginning. Judar stood to leave.

The fact that he agreed to look through Scheherazade’s notes despite knowing exactly what they’d be like was more irritating than all of Titus’s insisting put together. “I’m going to look around the city,” he said. “Tell me if you find anything interesting. Though I doubt a single scroll of hers is worthwhile.”

Judar left the dim library without waiting for an answer and left the house in a hurry so as to not run into anyone.

It was still bright outside. The sun reflected off the stone brick and marble landscape with ease, making it difficult to see until his eyes adjusted.

He should have never agreed to go in the first place. He didn’t agree with anything of Scheherazade’s and probably never would. They were too different.

As much as she pretended her truth was the only one from within her journal, it was just that: a journal. Subjective. Maybe her truth was just as she’d written - watching the human she adored dying, surrounded by his family whom he loved more than her, and calling it happy just because she liked him.

But that wasn’t true for Judar. To him that wasn’t happy at all. He’d like it if Hakuryuu thought so, too. It was comfortable when they agreed on things.

It would take awhile longer for them to finish reading whatever else Scheherazade thought to put on paper while she was on land, and probably a few days after that for Hakuryuu to digest it and decide on what he thought. Judar wouldn’t tell him what to think. He wanted to hear Hakuryuu say clearly, after thinking about it on his own, that their opinions were the same and that being selfish was best.

Or maybe if Hakuryuu were in his place, he’d choose Scheherazade’s answer. Judar could see that, too. He sighed. For as well as he knew Hakuryuu, it was still impossible to know how he’d feel about a siren issue. He’d never had to think about them before, so of course he had no opinion on it yet.

Hakuryuu would make a good siren. He had the resolve, the ideals, and would have the means to make anything happen - the power. He wouldn’t need to rely on anyone else.

Except that he’d still be alone just the same as he’d been for so long before Judar met him.

Maybe being whole alone wasn’t a good thing. It sounded awfully boring. But it was still better than being empty and alone, as Scheherazade now was.

Judar stopped, already somewhere he didn’t recognize, and sighed.

What was he doing, anyway? Understanding his own thoughts shouldn’t have been hard. But he didn’t understand why he was still thinking of this.

Even considering it was strange. It was definitely strange. He shouldn’t feel hopeful for something that could cause nothing but suffering. He wasn’t a masochist.

Judar sat at the edge of a fountain, letting the water spray his face to cool him down. Reim was hot. Hotter than Rakushou, at least. Next time he wanted to go somewhere like Imuchakk.

Until now, he’d gone everywhere with Hakuryuu. He tried to imagine going alone.

It was a snowy place, so he’d play in the snow. But without anyone to throw snowballs at, it’d just be cold. So he’d have to warm himself up, and eat one of those rampaging unicorns and whatever else it was famous for.

Alone.

How boring.

Judar sat there for some time, watching the reflection of the sky in the fountain change colors. The water was starting to feel cold in his hair. He didn’t move.

He’d been through a lot with Hakuryuu. He really enjoyed Hakuryuu’s plans slowly becoming a reality and the satisfied look that he got when he did well. Hakuryuu didn’t have much to live for now, but if he did, then they could keep fighting and going new places. He would have to rely on Judar because he couldn’t do anything alone anymore, with his revenge already accomplished.

That was fine. Judar was already used to living like that, so he’d show Hakuryuu how to enjoy it.

From the outside, Titus assumed it was a relationship like Scheherazade’s. That wasn’t right at all. They’d always been lopsided in some way or another. It was just the way they were. No, Titus was right. But in all the wrong ways.

It was true that he was more attached that a siren should get to a human. What wasn’t true was that he needed to accept the long life that’d leave alone. Being alone was boring, so he didn’t have to stand it for a second if he didn’t want to.

He stood with a light shiver. They were probably going to have dinner soon, and Judar was getting hungry. If carrying money in Reim wasn’t so much of a pain, he would have brought some and could just eat out.

He found the right place without too much trouble. It was unlocked just as he’d left it.

Hakuryuu’s face brightened when he saw Judar enter the kitchen. “Where were you?”

Judar shrugged. He pulled up a chair by Hakuryuu. He disliked having to eat across from Titus and whatever humans were there any givin day, but since Hakuryuu thought it was the best way to learn about Reim, he was stuck with it.

Titus, Muu, and one of the other Fanalis Corps members that might’ve been Muu’s sister were back to chatting about elections in no time.

“Muu’s going to run in the senate elections, can you believe it?” Titus asked a little half-heartedly. It was old news for everyone else, and Titus’s mind was clearly still elsewhere, but it sounded like it was the first official announcement of candidates. So everyone had to act cheery and congratulate him now or something.

Or maybe that wasn’t what they were supposed to do. Judar looked to Hakuryuu for some kind of cue, but he didn’t look like he knew either.

“What of the emperor elections?” Hakuryuu asked.

“Ignatius will be trying for that. I don’t know all the candidates, but the current emperor's son will be competing too.”

“Ignatius is a relative of mine,” Muu said. “A fine general and man. I believe the country would be in good hands under his rule.”

Hakuryuu smiled at how convenient is was for them. It reached his rukh instantly and Titus’s eyes flicked to their sudden activity.

“Is something wrong?”

“Hm? No. Sorry,” Hakuryuu said. Unsure of what he’d done to warrant questioning, he backtracked. “I’m happy to hear that your family is in such good shape.”

Muu smiled. Unable to see the rukh, he took Hakuryuu’s compliment at face value. “Thank you. Perhaps we should toast to good health!”

Hakuryuu politely refused, and forced the conversation back to the elections. Muu and Titus vividly recalled the various competition, blunt in their descriptions of past scandals and accomplishments. 

Hakuryuu soaked up the information, asking for clarification on each likely winner. Judar disliked the idea of having to eat with Titus since the beginning, but Hakuryuu had been right: the best way to get information was over food. It helped that Muu was obviously treating of them as friends of Titus’s instead of potential enemies from a foreign empire.

Judar was pleased that he managed to eat without being disturbed once. He closed his eyes and drowned out the rest of their conversation. If any of it was important, Hakuryuu would remember it.

Listening to such a long story earlier had been exhausting. He wanted to rest a bit before they had to leave for their room.

Resting for a bit became more than resting his eyes when their conversation dragged on and on. 

“Judar.”

Judar’s eyes fluttered open. He blinked until they focused on the blurry pattern in front of him.

Hakuryuu’s robe. No wonder his face was hot. That thing radiated heat. He lifted his head.

“Why’d you wake him up?” Titus asked. “He looked so peaceful.”

“Definitely wake me up if I ever fall asleep in front of Titus again,” Judar mumbled.

“I know. Come on, they said we can use rooms here.”

“We already have a room,” Judar said through a yawn.

“Don’t complain. I already accepted.”

Judar shrugged and stood. “Where is it?”

Muu showed them the way to the old servants’ quarters. “My family hasn’t owned slaves for generations now, so we’ve been using the rooms for guests. They’re a bit cramped, especially for guests of your calibre, but I hope it’s alright for one night.”

Both rooms he showed were struggling to hold all their necessities. Small wasn’t an exaggeration. Hakuryuu thanked him nonetheless.

“There are clothes in the wardrobe. Please sleep well,” Muu said, smiled, and left.

Judar flopped down on the bed in the slightly bigger room. Hakuryuu followed, looking through the various sizes of clothes they’d been left.

“Will these be okay?” Hakuryuu asked. He held up a short white gown.

“Aren’t those the things everyone wears around here?” Judar asked.

“Yes. They don’t seem like they’d cover your gills.”

“It’s fine. I doubt anyone but Titus would be dumb enough to barge in if you sleep with me.”

“… Fair point.”

Hakuryuu tossed the clothes to Judar. The material was different, but it wasn’t too bad.

Titus knew sound magic well enough that anything they said in the house had a chance of being overheard, so Judar didn’t ask about what Hakuryuu learned. He sat back on the bed, moving to the side without the candle that Muu had lit for them, and closed his eyes. Hakuryuu followed soon after, blowing out the candle.

He lay there.

And lay there… 

Despite being tired after eating, falling asleep for a moment earlier ruined his chance of getting to sleep.

Hakuryuu’s even breathing was proof that he was asleep and a sign that Judar should sleep too, as he had no reason to be awake.

He turned to face Hakuryuu. They hadn’t gotten to spend much time together recently between Hakuryuu’s responsibilities and Judar’s magic training, and looking at his sleeping face made him want to see him awake. 

The two days before meeting with the emperor of Reim hadn’t been enough. That wasn’t the feeling he expected to have after hearing Scheherazade’s story. Maybe he was getting soft.

…Who was he kidding? It took a certain kind of person to be tempted to surface by stories of heroism and love. Just because he’d turned away from that chance at every turn didn’t mean it wasn’t where he’d started.

Judar sat up and sighed. He thought he was already done thinking about it, but now that he was alone again it filled his head. A part of him wanted to shake Hakuryuu awake. But he’d just be annoyed if he did.

He slid out of bed. As much as Hakuryuu would have liked to be a light sleeper, he generally wasn’t. He wouldn’t notice Judar leaving as long as he wasn’t loud.

Judar wandered around the dark house aimlessly. It was a big place and there was sure to be something more interesting than the pattern of the ceiling or Hakuryuu’s breathing hidden away in a side room. Especially if it was a house old enough that Scheherazade had once lived in it. But it wasn’t as well decorated as the palace, and there were only so many ways furniture could surprise him when he lived in a palace.

In the end, all he found was Titus staring off into space from an armchair in a sitting room. “Can’t sleep either?” Titus asked while re-adjusting the sleeve of a nearly identical outfit to what Judar had. They both had it pulled tight around the neck to hide their gills. 

“No,” Judar responded. “Bed at home is softer.” It wasn’t a lie, really. Royalty had it great in Kou.

“You’d fit in here,” Titus said and smiled. “Plenty of other spoiled nobles.”

“What’re you doing awake?”

“Just thinking. Marga had a nightmare, and I couldn’t get back to sleep after calming her.”

Judar sat in the chair across from Titus and yawned. He was too tired to feel any more exhausted by talking with Titus. “Seriously, aren’t you too young to have a kid?”

“This is the only time Marga will live. I’m not abandoning her just because I’m young.”

Titus’s rukh chirped earnestly. Judar watched them, bright in the dark room. “She’s gonna die sooner than later, you know. It’ll be more trouble for you to take care of her than not.”

“I think she’d like to be rukh of the wind, able to travel the world and see many new things even in death,” Titus said, then frowned, eyes straining to follow Judar’s rukh in the darkness. “Do you think you will? Return to the rukh, I mean?”

“Doesn’t everybody?”

“Everybody else’s rukh is white. All the legends say we return to the shining white flow.”

“Hakuryuu’s isn’t,” Judar said. “His is black, too.”

“I noticed that when we were alone earlier. Why?”

“…I don’t know,” Judar confessed. “Does it matter? Even if it doesn’t return to the flow, I can still keep it…”

His voice trailed off as he realized where he’d let the conversation go. It was a difficult topic to avoid as sirens in the human world. They’d skipped around it for days, talking about anything else but what would happen after the humans they knew died. Now that it was late and Scheherazade’s notes had already said nearly all there was to say on the subject, Titus wasn’t so intent on avoiding it.

“Scheherazade’s scrolls gave me a lot to think about,” Titus said. “I keep trying to push it to the back of my head, but it’s very difficult.”

Judar didn’t respond. Titus kept going.

“I… want to live life alongside them. We’ll live much longer than them, so we’re forced to stand farther from humans than they stand from us. At first even that fact was very painful for me. I wanted to be equal with them. I wanted to live by them forever. Isn’t it strange that the rukh are meant to love us unconditionally, but give us such a cruel fate?”

“We’re not the same as them. There’s no point in pretending to be.” He’d already tried that, after all.

“That doesn’t mean we can’t live together,” Titus said. "I will be there for Marga until she dies. I think that will make her very happy.”

“You won’t be able to,” Judar argued. “You didn’t save enough magoi for that.”

“I know.”

“How do you plan to stay with her then? It’s impossible for you.”

“It wasn’t impossible for you,” Titus said. “With the amount of magoi you have, it must be simple for you now.”

“…But you wouldn’t.”

“No… no. Maybe I’ll live in the Alexius baths, and everyone could bring me their dinner scraps and pay respects before bathing.”

Judar rolled his eyes. “They’d get bored of you if you were stuck in there, you know.”

Titus sniffled. “I know. After feeling what it’s like, I don’t blame you for what you did. It’s the only way you could live on the same level as them.”

“I’m not some innocent kid. I also could have lived in a bathroom in the palace.”

Titus nodded. “I know. I couldn’t take another person’s life, and I hated myself for even thinking of it… But at the same time, I don’t feel qualified to judge you for anything. Not what I’ve heard about what happened in Kou, and not what Scheherazade told me… in this world it’s difficult to know if there’s a right answer. Time passes so quickly that we need to decide before we’re sure what we’re doing is right.”

“…Just like Scheherazade. You’re too soft. I’m going back to sleep.”

Judar found the door to his room cracked open just as he left it and closed it behind himself. Hakuryuu was curled up, holding Judar’s pillow captive tightly between his arms. Judar tugged at it to get it back, too tired to worry about waking Hakuryuu now that he was back. Once he got it he lay with his back facing Hakuryuu, unsurprised when he latched onto him as a replacement for his pillow only minutes later.

Hakuryuu could be clingy when he was deep asleep. It was warm enough that they’d both wake up sweaty if Hakuryuu didn’t move away, but Judar knew he wouldn’t. It was kinda endearing despite how uncomfortable it was to wake up sticky with sweat, especially the way Hakuryuu only halfheartedly moved away even when he was physically uncomfortable.

Judar sighed. Thoughts like that were his problem. He was allowing himself to fall into the same trap Titus fell in, no, had been allowing it long before Titus even came to the surface.

Hakuryuu stirred, moving his left elbow to Judar’s back, then moving it back to use his right arm to run a hand through Judar’s hair instead.

“You’re never gonna remember there’s not a hand there, are you?”

“Maybe not so late,” Hakuryuu mumbled. “You woke me up.”

“Just now?”

“Yeah.”

Hakuryuu’s breath on his shoulder was a little ticklish. Just when Judar thought he’d finally get some sleep, too.

“Are you okay?” Hakuryuu asked.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You’ve been acting weird all day. I was hoping you’d get some sleep if we stayed here, not go exploring.”

“I just felt like stretching,” Judar said. “You worry too much.”

Hakuryuu sighed. “Sorry. I’m not trying to annoy you. But…”

Judar tried to pull away a little, but Hakuryuu was stronger than he looked. He probably didn’t even realize that his cuddling would turn into a death grip if his dream went sour, and even if it didn’t, it’d still be too hot to sleep. “Go to sleep. But move over a little. You’re gonna make me all sweaty. It’s warmer here than Rakushou, you know.”

Hakuryuu obliged. Even after moving away his leg still touched Judar’s.

“Night,” Judar said.

“…Good night.” 

Hakuryuu’s breathing didn’t even out for a long time. Judar counted a few of his breaths, inhales and exhales, and matched his own. Emptied his head of thoughts.

He didn’t wake again until sunrise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was originally supposed to be one chapter with the next one but it got to over 10k so i guess it’s two chapters now. i had fun writing scheherazade, maybe someday ill write something with her as the protag


	25. Chapter 25

In the morning when Hakuryuu woke Judar to tie his arm back on he announced that they would be leaving for Balbadd in a day’s time. An invisible weight lifted from his shoulders.

“Finally,” he said. “Feels like we’ve been here for forever.”

“A week,” Hakuryuu said. “And in that time we got a lot done.” Hakuryuu tied his own hair using his arm. Handy, sure, but he still had to get the arm on in the morning in the first place, meaning Judar still had to get up early. “I’ve learned magoi manipulation adequately and you’ve found records of several spells you want to learn, right?”

“Yeah,” Judar said. “Some aberrant magic that looks real cool, alchemic magic, and another version of the spell I’ve been practicing at home. Though it seems like Scheherazade’s notes were worthless.”

“I wouldn’t call them worthless. It just seems like if she recorded formulas it was done elsewhere.” 

Judar rolled his eyes. “Not you too. Whatever, I’m heading out.”

“You aren’t going back to sleep today?”

“Nah. I’ll sleep once we’re back home. Or in Balbadd, I guess.”

After Hakuryuu left, Judar took his time getting ready as the sun rose. It took far longer than it needed to for how long he spent thinking about how much he’d rather be sleeping and nodding off in the warm sun, but he’d sleep better in Balbadd. Hakuryuu would sleep worse. That made it the ideal place to catch up on his sleep.

He wasn’t looking forward to Hakuryuu moping around, but if he was going to be in a bad mood anyway just because it was Balbadd, there was no harm in scheduling his sleep around it.

Judar checked his braid over a couple times, just to be sure. Nice and clean. Whether he’d mess it up again training or not, having a nice braid was the best start to any day. He opened a transfer circle and stepped through. The sunrise was bright enough to make him squint both in the sky and on the ocean, but it was the best place to practice uninterrupted.

Sand under his toes and sea spray on his face always steeled his resolve to stay on land. He was practicing alchemy magic not for Titus’s kid but for himself. It could prove useful if he could just minimize the recovery time it took after it was cast on someone.

He had to master the basics before he could work on that, though. By the time the sun reached the center of the sky Judar had made a starfish hard and sleek like a sea urchin, but had trouble adding the extra legs when it was already hard. If done in reverse, it was easy.

There was an order to it: the malleable parts had to be changed first or whatever he was trying to change would crack and break. He tested it with several other starfish and determined it to be the truth. Doing it like this - changing them from the inside out - was the only way to change them at all. Step one was the hardest. As the process went on it got easier.

By doing it like that, he was able to change a starfish into what looked like a real sea urchin. He couldn’t tell if it was alive or not, though. Its rukh was ambiguously slow, as was sometimes the case with smaller creatures. Maybe picking a fish would’ve been better.

If it was alive, was it even really a sea urchin? Of course, it looked exactly like one. Anyone would say so. But it was made into a sea urchin, piece by piece. Either one of those tiny pieces turned it into a sea urchin or it didn’t.

It was annoying because he’d never be able to tell. Taking it apart would only show what his eyes would see and he couldn’t tell the differences between rukh of starfish and sea urchins in the first place. The only thing he could get from the rukh was that it was long dead when it scattered.

Judar dropped his creation back into the ocean when its rukh left. It only took three waves to bring it far out of sight back into the sea.

He didn’t understand exactly what alchemic magic was. Until he did it wasn’t safe for use on himself. More experiments would be necessary, just like how he experimented with the isolation barrier until he was sure of its limits. Magic was all about those kinds of tests, as tedious as they could be.

For a change of pace Judar practiced the destruction magic he found detailed in one of Reim’s imperial library’s scrolls. The trick was compression. Forcing as much magic as possible into as small of a space as possible. The better he was able to compress it, the better the explosion would be.

When he let go of the magic compressing it, the explosion pushed waves back from the force and left his ears ringing. It reminded him of the spell Gyokuen had used on her rukh, but if he compressed it more and threw it just right it could destroy more than just the inner palace’s facade. 

The trick would be setting it to trigger at her death, regardless of if there were a an isolation barrier or not, meaning the flow of magoi was irrelevant. Rukh’s activity was abnormal at death, so a spell that needed a regular physical trigger like this could depend on it. But using rukh as a trigger would be difficult. They weren’t physical, as clear as they sometimes looked, so adjustments would be needed… Maybe he was thinking about it in the wrong way in the first place.

Judar frowned. How old was Gyokuen, anyway? She sure knew lots of strange spells, ones that must have taken a long time to perfect. So it was strange that with all that time, one of the spells she went through the trouble to create was one to blow her own rukh up. It had to have a purpose.

None of it made sense. Thinking of it was irritating, and he never did get around to asking Hakuryuu about it. It seemed too personal, especially since he never really recovered from killing her in the first place. 

He couldn’t really walk up say, “Hey, remember your dead mom, why’d she blow her rukh up? Make herself stop existing? Did she hate being alive that much?”

And Hakuryuu would say in return, “You know, I’m not sure, but I sure love thinking about it! Thanks for giving me such a cheerful topic to research for hours after working twice as long as necessary. By the way, why do you want to know? It can’t be because you’re totally clueless, right?”

Ugh. He knew that it wouldn’t go exactly like that, but it’d still be pointless. It wasn’t like human scrolls would have the answers he wanted anyway.

Titus had him thinking about it again, but he never meant to let it slide to the back of his mind in the first place. Gyokuen as a person didn’t bother him. She was dead and didn’t matter anymore. But he didn’t mean to forget about looking into her black rukh. It just didn’t feel like a big deal anymore once Hakuryuu’s turned black and his wasn’t alone in a sea of white. But Titus had a fair point - it might not even be capable of returning to the flow anymore. The stagnant black rukh in his dead colony and on the battlefield seemed to support that idea. If that was true, it meant the end of existence as a whole for himself after death, not just the end of himself as a person. The same would go for Hakuryuu.

So it was at least worth keeping in mind. There was likely someone else out there who’d wondered the same and had already completed at least preliminary research on the subject. As long as he found that, things would get easy.

It’d seriously be a drag doing experiments on changing rukh by himself, so he’d prefer if someone else did it instead. Then again, he was only willing to read through old scrolls for so long. There was no telling if he’d find it recorded anywhere even if it existed.

Judar didn’t return to Titus’s house until he was sufficiently exhausted from thinking and training. He was able to perfectly zone out their dinner chatter.

It helped that Hakuryuu dealt with telling them that it’d be their last day, thanking them for various things that he’d already thanked them for. Politeness was important for things he didn’t really care about, whereas things he did care about got nothing.

It’d be pretty weird thanking them for information, so that was probably a good thing.

They left soon after and Judar fell asleep as soon as they returned to their room.

So much for sleeping in Balbadd. Running on a lack of sleep while maintaining his magic was difficult.

The morning after sleeping for fourteen hours was always a special kind of terrible. Stiff from sleeping for too long and sore from using too much magic the day before, all Judar could do when Hakuryuu woke him to leave was groan.

“Surely you slept long enough…”

“That’s the problem.”

“Will you ever break out of that habit of speaking in Torran first thing in the morning?” Hakuryuu asked and shook him lightly. “Come on. You can go back to sleep once we’re in Balbadd, if you want.”

“No. I don’t wanna go back to sleep. I’ll just be even more stiff then.”

Hakuryuu’s hand paused on his shoulder. “Stretching helps with stiffness.”

Judar stretched his legs out under the covers and yawned. Hakuryuu was right, it did feel a little better.

“Stretching standing up works even better.”

“I’m not falling for that.”

“It’s not that far to the edge of the bed. I could just pull you out, if I wanted.”

“Noooo…” That got Judar to move. He sat up groggily. When his eyes focused he found Hakuryuu sitting beside him. “You’re not out of bed either.”

“Because I was trying to wake you,” Hakuryuu said, then stood and stretched.

It looked very refreshing. Judar did the same, and it _was_ refreshing. Just like Hakuryuu said it would be. Come to think of it, Hakuryuu wasn’t usually so nice dealing with Judar’s morning stubbornness. Eager to get to Balbadd, no doubt.

Judar tied Hakuryuu’s arm on - it took a few tries to get it right for how stiff his own arms were - and set to getting dressed. He woke up for real somewhere between putting his robe on and fixing his hair, munching on hard fruits that Hakuryuu had probably bought the night before for breakfast while Judar slept.

When they were both ready Judar opened a transfer circle and stepped through. He shivered instinctively once he came out the other side, rain wetting his hair almost as fast as jumping in a bath would.

Though Balbadd was uncomfortably warm just a week ago, with the rain an unmistakable chill filled the air. If breakfast hadn’t woken him up, transferring right in the middle of a rainstorm would’ve. The warm air and cold water brought back an unpleasant feeling that the empty streets only added to.

Hakuryuu tugged on his arm. “Come on, Judar. The palace is this way.”

Judar blinked the water out of his eyes and followed. Walking in the heavy rain, their footsteps were drowned out. It didn’t take long for Hakuryuu to realize the palace was too far and settle for walking into the nearest storefront instead.

They dripped water carelessly through the entryway. No one was at the counter to tell them off, so Judar squeezed some water from his hair onto the floor too for good measure. Hakuryuu shot him a disapproving look.

“What? Not like anyone’s here.”

“They probably just didn’t hear us come in.”

“Whatever. You can just pay them for damages if they complain.”

“No, if they complain it’s coming out of _your_ paycheck.”

Judar laughed. “Like that makes any difference. If I asked for half the treasury I’d get it.”

“I’ll be sure to fix that once we get back,” Hakuryuu said monotonously. 

“What would you even say? You’re sick of me acting spoiled, so you want them to stop spoiling me for you? I’d pay to hear that conversation.”

Hakuryuu huffed. “Of course I wouldn’t say it like that. I wouldn’t explain. As you like to say, I’m emperor. Who would argue?”

“Uh, other than me?”

Their bickering brought the shop’s owner to the front. With her face worked into an obvious scowl, it was clear that she expected to have the morning to herself with the heavy rain. “Is there anything you need help with?”

Hakuryuu straightened up and had a look at her inventory. He chatted amicably about her products, mostly perfumes, but didn’t sound especially interested in any of it.

When the sound of the rain quieted Hakuryuu bought a small bottle, thanked her, and motioned for Judar that it was time to leave.

“You actually bought one?”

“It’s the least we could do after getting water everywhere,” Hakuryuu mumbled. He handed the bottle to Judar.

“What, you’re pawning it off on me?”

“Normally people call that a present. But yes, I have no use for it.”

“You just bought it ‘cause you felt guilty. That’s not a present.” Judar sniffed at it dubiously. It did smell kinda good.

“She also had civet and musk rat perfumes. Would you have preferred one of those?”

“This one’s fine,” Judar said and pulled the stopper to drip some on his hands. It followed him as he walked, a faint but pleasant smell. If Hakuryuu intentionally picked it out for him to wear, he did a good job picking one he liked. But that didn’t make it a present. A real present was one he didn’t buy just because he felt bad for getting water everywhere.

The city came to life with the slower rain. Children came running out of the surrounding buildings, chasing each other through puddles before adults came to yell at them. The fresh smell of rain mixed with newly lit cigars from locals to form a smell that was very uniquely Balbadd.

Once the owners of each street’s stalls came back out it was all too easy to get distracted looking. Balbadd’s markets were similar to Rakushou’s, but thanks to laxer laws for what they could sell they were uniquely Balbadd. There were many items Judar had never seen that held his interest for just long enough for the owner to start a hopeful sales pitch from under stone facades meant to keep the markets dry.

The rain stopped completely soon after and it was easy to forget that Hakuryuu didn’t care much for shopping. He didn’t object to looking around, not with a whole day to kill in Balbadd in front of them. He watched quietly as Judar picked up this or that trinket, listened to a few words on it, and put it down, having forgotten whatever it was that made him want to pick it up in the first place.

Judar almost forgot Hakuryuu was there at all until he spoke. “You’re pretty into jewelry, aren’t you?”

“It looks good on me,” Judar said. His pace slowed as they passed a storefront with windows full of gold.

“Do you want to look inside?”

Judar shrugged and went in. The smell of smoke was amplified from being contained in such a small space, and he had to fight the urge to cough, unused to it as he was. Hakuryuu didn’t do as well, coughing several times before adjusting.

“Welcome,” the shopkeeper said, and seeing that they appeared to have money, he smiled. “Is there anything in particular you’re looking for?”

Judar ignored him.

“…We have engagement rings, bracelets, earrings… all pure gold, of course—”

“There’s something you don’t have,” Hakuryuu said, voice low so as to not disturb the sales pitch. “Earrings. Though I can see why: earrings aren’t very popular in Kou.”

“How do you wear them, anyway?”

“You’d have to pierce your ears.”

Judar stopped to look over a couple pairs of dangling earrings in more detail. They did look good, though none of them would match his choker. A few had siren scales hanging from chains of silver or gold that the shopkeeper was eager to explain the value of. 

“Nowadays we don’t get many sirens at the coast, you understand, so fishing boats have to go far and still don’t get one for a year at times. This is a good price for such a ra—”

“How do you pierce them?” Judar interrupted. He figured it couldn’t be that hard, since Titus did it and all. Or, more realistically, since Scheherazade did it for Titus.

The shopkeeper’s grin grew. “So the earrings have caught your eye? It’s only natural - they’re wonderful, especially these with the scales - and it’s really very simple. I have all the materials here, if you’d like them pierced.”

“How much?”

He named a price that Hakuryuu immediately objected to. “It can’t be that expensive. Otherwise all those kids wouldn’t have their ears pierced.”

“…Children’s discount.”

Hakuryuu frowned. “Thanks for showing us around the store,” he mumbled as he left.

Judar followed him out. “You’re so stingy.”

“Do you even really want them pierced?”

“Kinda, yeah. But only if I can find some earrings that’ll match my choker.”

Hakuryuu glanced at his choker, gold inlaid with a waxy red stone, then back away to focus on the foggy silhouette of the palace in the distance. He seemed distracted. “I’m sure you can find someone closer to the palace to do it.”

Judar shrugged. “Do you have something to take care of, or what? You didn’t when we were here a week ago. So I didn’t think you’d be in a hurry.”

“I thought of some things that needed doing.”

“Oh… well, whatever.”

The first thing Judar did once they reached the palace was have a hot bath drawn. It felt good after being damp from the rain for the past hour. Sure, he’d still be wet after he got out, but at least it wouldn’t be so cold. And his clothes would be dry. Or, better yet, he could bypass the clothes part completely and take a nap. Baths always made him want to take a nap.

Then he’d be awake again by the time Hakuryuu finished his errands and they could do something together. It didn’t matter what it was - after spending time with Titus for a whole week, he felt like he needed some real alone time with Hakuryuu. Time that had nothing to do with dusty old scrolls or politics or orders.

Actually, Judar didn’t get many orders from Hakuryuu anymore. Maybe it was safe to cross that one off the list.

He fell asleep before he finished braiding his hair, and woke to an uncomfortably damp and unbrushed mess that took an hour and some magic to fix.

The only thing he really had to do was take some magoi from Musta’sim’s colony’s rukh before the trip back to Rakushou. It wasn’t explicitly necessary, but it’d be better to just do that than sleep a day away.

With Hakuryuu still gone and likely to be working until sundown now that he’d gotten started, he had plenty of time to fix that. Judar set to restoring his magoi. The voices inside the rukh didn’t bother him no matter what they said, but every now and then a strong feeling still left him reeling. With their rukh in his body, images and feelings could be sent straight through his mind if he tried to use their magoi. He should’ve been ready for the worst possible outcome instead of the mild experience it was the past few times.

It was the black rukh that showed him the most repulsive scenes, things he had never even considered could happen. It had more individuality than the white rukh left by far, judging by the vividness of the feeling. Judar dug his nails into his arms to try to escape from the vivid images but it didn’t do much to help.

Finding the scales of a loved one in a human market, unable to buy the pieces back to save them the shame for their exuberant price and too scared to get revenge alone. Too cowardly. The death of a child, too curious to heed the warnings of wandering around outside the barriers. Recovering the body alone. Bad luck.

Then, just as soon as it had started, he finished transferring magoi and it was over. Judar swallowed, then coughed from the dryness of his throat. It was a small price to pay for the use of so much magoi, but the feeling lingered in his chest.

He’d never met those people that he now knew so much about - they were dead by his hands. He hadn’t given them the chance to fight back then, so it was only fair to let them fight back in death. Knowing that didn’t help to slow his pulse.

Judar ran a few prospective distractions through his head. Food was out while he was nauseous. Talking to Hakuryuu was out because he was sure his face was still pale. Finding Kougyoku was out because he didn’t even know if she still lived in the palace, and although Balbadd was smaller than Rakushou by far, it wasn’t small enough to play hide-and-seek in.

Judar lay back down on the bed and stared at the ceiling. It was a different color from the ceiling he was staring at all last night in Reim.

He needed a hobby. One that didn’t require magoi.

Hakuryuu saved him from his boredom by coming in, and Judar was happy to see him for the split second before he remembered he probably still looked like shit. Hakuryuu’s expression confirmed it.

“Let’s do something,” Judar said before Hakuryuu could comment. “I’m bored. Balbadd is boring alone.”

“…Okay.”

Judar blinked. It was only barely afternoon. He didn’t think Hakuryuu would be done so early.

“What do you have in mind?”

Judar blinked. He hadn’t gotten that far yet but quickly thought of something. “I want to find someone to pierce my ears before we leave,” he said. “It’d be annoying trying to find someone in Rakushou. And we can get lunch and stuff, too.”

Hakuryuu frowned. Though he couldn’t see Judar’s distraught rukh, it was clear that he was in some way failing to be convincing. It was strange. Judar never used to have trouble with acting - it always came just as naturally as magic. So why it was failing him now, even when his complexion must’ve mostly returned to normal, was just as confusing as the fact that he had absolutely no idea what to say if Hakuryuu asked.

Which he didn’t do. Which Judar would’ve known he wouldn’t do, if he were thinking straight. Hakuryuu hadn’t questioned much of what Judar did to his face since Gyokuen died.

He was only able to slip back into the normal flow of being himself arguing about where to eat for lunch, a battle that Hakuryuu begrudgingly lost. Seafood it was.

“What’s up with this?” Judar asked, pointing to Hakuryuu’s displeased expression. He didn’t like losing. “You should be grateful. I have good taste, unlike you.”

“I wasn’t complaining,” Hakuryuu said. “Unlike you, I’m not a sore loser.”

“Are too! You just can’t see the face you’re making about it, that’s all.”

Hakuryuu batted his hand away. “I’m sure you’ve picked somewhere wonderful.” His false tone betrayed the smile he tried to hide when he turned his head, and Judar finally realized that Hakuryuu was trying to cheer him up.

If Judar was getting worse at acting, Hakuryuu was getting better.

Judar got his ears pierced - it was a simple process, not requiring much more than a cork and needle, but was told not to wear long earrings yet. It was a shame since the long ones were much more of his style than the wire and painted clay earrings that were popular among the lower classes.

Of course, he still bought a nice pair. He just couldn’t wear them yet. With gold chains and a speck of a red gem each, they matched his choker nicely.

Hakuryuu didn’t complain about being dragged along. Rather, he seemed to enjoy browsing if Judar explained to him what he liked and disliked about each piece. It was fun.

And yet he couldn’t get comfortable.

Hakuryuu found somewhere quiet to eat dinner. It was more expensive than what they’d been having in Reim - coins were heavy, but bills were light. So luxuries weren’t as much trouble to come by within the Kou Empire. Then after eating, they returned to the palace at dusk.

Back in their room Hakuryuu finally let the false expression fall from his face. He’d been trying to cheer Judar up, but something had been eating at him all day.

“I wanted to talk,” he said. “But it’s not something that’s easy to talk about with others around.”

Judar nodded. He’d seen this coming, though he hadn’t expected Hakuryuu to decide what he thought so soon. He hadn’t been looking forward to it, but since it’d happen sooner or later regardless of what he thought, there was no point in being stubborn and leaving.

“There are a few things I wanted to say,” Hakuryuu said. He sat on one of the room’s cushioned chairs and motioned for Judar to do the same. 

“Just say it,” Judar said. “It’s about what Titus had you read, right?”

Hakuryuu’s rukh jumped in surprise, like he’d been caught doing something bad. “It was interesting hearing what another siren thought. After you left, Titus told me how surfacing in Reim was as well.”

“Guess you know a lot about Reim now. Goal accomplished, right?”

“In a way,” Hakuryuu agreed. “Understanding the pride that the people of Reim carry is important should we wage war against them. As a country they value charisma over strength in generals and have a lax attitude about magic alongside a strict history of slavery… It is a very different country from Kou, and different from Sindria as well. Seeing it all first hand was eye opening. There are as many types of countries as there are ways of thought, it seems.”

“As there should be.”

“As long as you have no problem fighting Titus, we should be able to win in a war against them.”

“Who do you think I am?” Judar asked. “Killing Titus is no different from killing anyone else to me.”

“You’re confidant that you’d win?”

“…Titus is pretty strong, but I’m stronger. I have an isolation barrier and there’s nothing Titus could do if held inside of one.” It might be hard if the Fanalis Corps fought beside Titus. But he didn’t know if Titus would really fight him in the first place.

Hakuryuu nodded, accepting Judar’s words as the truth. “Those two - Scheherazade and Titus - are very different from you,” he said. “They seem to be very peaceful people.”

“Some days. I guess they’re pretty average, as far as sirens go,” Judar said. “Well, I guess it was your first time meeting one like that, though.”

“You were right that Titus was difficult to talk to,” Hakuryuu said.

“Yeah,” Judar said. “Even more than usual. Normally it’s hard ‘cause you can’t get a word in and Titus just says the first thing that comes to mind. But last week nothing really happened. Normally Titus can’t stay still for that long.”

“That’s interesting,” Hakuryuu said. “I wonder why.”

“Dunno. Too focused on other things, maybe.”

“Titus aside, it was interesting to learn more about sirens.”

“You’ve gotta know near everything about us now,” Judar said. “I feel like I already told you everything important.”

Hakuryuu shook his head. “I learned many interesting things. I thought everything about siren scales was just sales pitches. It's not just the scales, either. It was one thing to hear you say that things like concubines are strange to sirens. It was another entirely to hear about a true account of siren devotion. ”

He could see where this was going. “It doesn’t count until you give a scale. Until then you can do whatever you want.”

“Then why doesn’t everybody? For most humans there would be no point in doing such a thing. Everyone would put off giving it so they could spend longer having fun.”

Judar sighed. “Man, you really don’t get it, do you? I kinda understand why that old witch didn’t even try explaining it.”

Hakuryuu frowned, annoyed. “I never said that I didn’t understand it. Just that to most humans it would be pointless.”

“Humans don’t live so long. It would be pointless to them.”

“I wish that you would’ve said something about it sooner.”

“Why? Even if I explained it, you’re still a human. So it’d be pointless to you.”

Hakuryuu gripped the armrest of his chair. For a moment Judar thought he was really going to argue, but when he looked at Judar’s face the tension in his hand melted away. “I can’t blame you for thinking like that,” he mumbled.

“…Yeah.”

“But even if it isn’t the best for you… I still want you to think of me as more than just human,” he said. “Sorry.”

…Sorry?

That was the most selfish answer possible and he still had the nerve to say _sorry_?

Judar smiled. That was what he’d always liked about Hakuryuu. He was contradictory and honest at the same time to a degree that sometimes made him want to laugh.

Having someone so important that a siren would tear themself apart to give a pretty scale away as a pledge was an assurance. Life was very, very long and without the assurance that there’d always be something to live for there sometimes seemed to be no reason to be alive at all.

For that reason, giving one to a human was contradictory and stupid. A human couldn’t be a reason to live. Their lives were far too short to be anything more than a happy moment that’d soon be forgotten.

Even so, for that moment living was much, much brighter.

It wasn’t the kind of thing that Judar would give a scale over. He wasn’t that dumb. But he couldn’t deny that he was having more fun with Hakuryuu than he’d ever had.

“Why are you smiling?” Hakuryuu asked.

“Just felt like it.”

“…You are so weird. No matter how much I try to understand you, you still surprise me.”

“Same here,” Judar said. “Never a dull moment.”

“I’m not sure if I’m supposed to take that a compliment or not.”

“It’s a compliment! When have I ever insulted you?”

“…I suppose you have a point,” Hakuryuu said. He rose from his chair and walked to Judar’s. He moved Judar’s bangs from his forehead and kissed the bare skin softly.

Judar felt his face heat up. Kissing him normally was one thing, but something about the way Hakuryuu had just done it felt different. Off. Judar probably kissed his forehead a couple times while he was kissing the rest of his face, but Hakuryuu going out of his way to kiss it felt weird. In all his time in the human world, Judar hadn’t seen someone do that and wasn’t sure how to react. It definitely wasn’t sexual, so it had to be affectionate, right?

Affectionate. Right. Hakuryuu liked him, so affection was normal. He shouldn’t react to it. But their conversation had him on edge.

Hakuryuu pulled away to meet Judar’s eyes. He smiled at what he saw, looking as light and unsure as Judar felt. He was a little red, too. If he was just going to get embarrassed for doing it, he normally wouldn’t do it. The fact that he did anyway was new and it took Judar a moment to find the words to react.

“Why’d you do that?” Judar asked.

“Just felt like it,” Hakuryuu said.

“H-hey, don’t take my lines! Explain what it means better!”

Hakuryuu laughed. “You’ve kissed me in every place imaginable. You can’t go getting embarrassed just because I decided to do the same.”

Judar pushed him away. “You did it weird! That’s all!”

Hakuryuu rolled his eyes. “ _You’re_ calling _me_ weird now? You really have no self awareness at all.”

“Shut up! I’m way self aware!”

Hakuryuu put his hand over his mouth to hide a smile. “Are you… flustered?”

“I’m not! I never get flustered!”

“If that was all it took, I should have tried it sooner,” Hakuryuu said. He pushed closer again, this time kissing Judar’s mouth. “I always wondered what it’d take to embarrass you since nothing seems to. But I guess it was just a kiss on the forehead all along.”

Judar looked behind Hakuryuu at his rukh when he pulled away to talk. He was a nervous to be initiating so strongly and it showed just as clear as the pink shadow between dark specks of flapping wings.

…Hakuryuu was right. He liked Judar too much.

Then again, that feeling was one he could understand too. As a siren there was nothing dumber than what he was doing now. But Judar had never been one to listen to warnings.

Hakuryuu rested his head on Judar’s shoulder and breathed in deeply. “I’m glad you’re feeling better,” Hakuryuu mumbled into his hair. If his face was red before, it was probably starting to melt off from the heat by now.

“I’ always feel good,” Judar argued. He relaxed into the comfortable heat at his side, embarrassment forgotten.

“Stubborn as always. You never change.”

Couldn’t argue that.

He let Hakuryuu kiss his face until he was satisfied. He was well aware that this was payback. Unsure how to react, he didn’t react at all.

“How does it feel being on the receiving end?” Hakuryuu asked.

“I don’t like it,” Judar said quickly. 

Hakuryuu pulled away. After searching Judar’s face, he clearly didn’t believe his words. But he stopped anyway. “Titus was right. I don’t think you’re very honest.”

Judar didn’t respond.

“I also… have a lot of good things to say about you,” Hakuryuu said. “But you’d get cocky if I said anything.”

“That bad?”

“Yeah.”

There went his chance of relaxing. He tensed up again, just the same as when Hakuryuu kissed his forehead. Hakuryuu laughed.

“Judar, I’ve thought this before, but… you don’t know how to take a compliment, do you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this is a day late, i was sick yesterday and had a hard time focusing on editing


	26. Chapter 26

Rakushou’s palace was strangely quiet when they returned.

The plants in each guard’s brain died off after the first heavy frost and they never bothered replacing them. So it wasn’t that they couldn’t talk. They definitely could. Even if sometimes they blanked out for ten seconds and still had a lack of impulse control that was a little dangerous for their current positions.

It took a few hours for Judar to realize that the palace as a whole wasn’t quiet. It was that the halls quieted when he passed. Conversation died unnaturally and didn’t start up again until he was far past where he could hear what was being whispered about, and when he turned to look back, their rukh reflected nothing but fear.

He was used to being feared as a magician, but this was something on a completely different level. It’d been funny for a few days after the war when everyone first heard of his magical ability but it got old fast. Even then there were people who hadn’t cared or believed that he was really a magician. He could still chat with the palace guards if he’d wanted to know what was happening. Right now even the most easy going of guards were tight lipped and stiff shouldered when he passed, gulping instead of greeting him.

It kinda gave him the creeps. Mysteries weren’t his strong point. Hakuryuu was pretty good at them, though. He was emperor now and the emperor was usually one of the first people to know what was going on in the palace, from petty drama to dangerous situations. If anyone could figure it out, it was him. 

Then again, it was also possible that he was just imagining it. Either way, he wanted to see if Hakuryuu had noticed anything amiss.

The guards at the front of the inner palace gripped their weapons firmly when Judar approached. He stopped within their reach and looked them in the eyes from one to the other. Their rukh flitted about wildly like sparks.

“You gonna use those?” Judar asked.

Neither guard responded. They just stared, wide-eyed like a suffocated fish in the market. Their feet were frozen in place and Judar figured their fists were too.

Judar shrugged. “Your loss, I guess.” 

He pushed past the guards. Every step through the hall drew the attention of another official to his presence, and they took the same tight-lipped and wide-eyed look that he’d seen more times than he could count since returning. It was only Hakuryuu who reacted differently.

When he reached the throne, Hakuryuu met Judar’s questioning expression and frowned. “Judar…”

“You look like you’re about to tell me to leave.”

“No. Stay.”

Judar glanced around the room. Everyone was still staring. “Not really a friendly place to spend the rest of my day.”

“Sorry. I’m working on it.”

If that meant he’d get to hear what was going on by staying, that was good. He stood by the throne and looked at the advisor that was currently pestering Hakuryuu expectantly.

“Please continue,” Hakuryuu urged him.

“Your Majesty, if at all possible, I would like to continue our conversation in private.”

“Not possible,” Judar said.

The advisor waited for Hakuryuu to nod in confirmation.

“…I apologize for my imprudence,” the advisor said. He didn’t sound apologetic at all, and the way he glared at the floor from his spot bowing low to Hakuryuu only added to the haughty vibe he was giving off. “As I’ve said, I believe the best way to solve this would be with a demonstration.”

“And what exactly would that solve?” Hakuryuu prompted.

“It would show the people proof of the fact that our country still stands for human interests.”

Hakuryuu’s frown deepened. “That’s your concern?”

“I beg your pardon, but it is everyone’s concern,” the advisor said.

Another advisor joined by his side and kneeled. “Your Highness. The rumors are playing into the people’s fears, knowing what happened years ago in Musta’sim.”

“More importantly, I would like to know the source of these rumors,” Hakuryuu said. He didn’t motion for this advisor to stand either. “Isn’t it possible that they’re being spread intentionally to create discord?”

The advisors exchanged an unpleasant look. “Before that,” one said, “isn’t it important to officially address the falsehoods?”

“…No. Doing so would be pointless. You both are excused.”

Judar watched them leave. “What was that about? Sounds like you’re letting them work you up over gossip.”

“I’ll tell you later,” Hakuryuu said. The advisors were soon replaced by anxious officials, and the conversation repeated.

“You should just tell them all at once,” Judar said.

“That’s too efficient,” Hakuryuu mumbled.

If his goal wasn’t clearing them out, it was biding for time. It wasn’t obvious by Hakuryuu’s answers. Actually, addressing everyone’s concerns individually made him seem rather personable, in Judar’s opinion. It also made it seem less standoffish when he sent them away before they could ask too many questions he didn’t want to answer.

It lasted for another hour before Hakuryuu decided to call it a night. Judar doubted he would’ve left so early if not for his complaining, but a victory was a victory. It wasn’t until the door of Hakuryuu’s room was securely locked behind them that he relaxed.

“What was that all about?”

“A rumor started while we were gone. Judging by the timing, I’d say it was spread intentionally.” Hakuryuu sighed and removed his crown, then undid his hair. He looked terrible, and that was being nice about it - from how hollow his face looked, Judar doubted he’d taken a break long enough to eat all day.

He made no move to smooth out his messy hair, either. Judar ran a hand through it for him.

“I’d like confirmation before publicly accusing anything,” Hakuryuu continued. “But… it seems to me that someone has spread rumors of you being a siren.”

“That’s what they were all worked up about?”

“I suppose they were all too scared to say the word with you there. Before you came they were much more specific,” Hakuryuu said.

“What’d they say?”

“They wanted to find some way to prove you’re human and demonstrate it to the people.”

“And if you couldn’t do that?” Judar asked.

“Public execution was suggested.”

“Huh. But Gyokuen was rumored to be a siren as well. Didn’t keep her slimy hands off the crown.”

“Yes, but you’re the second accused in a short amount of time. Many are worried that sirens are trying to steal control of Kou as a country. Given that I’m half siren, their fears aren’t unfounded.”

“What’re they gonna do about it? Your family’s always been at the top of Kou.”

“Only my sister and I are half siren,” Hakuryuu said. “Koumei, Kouha, and even Kougyoku could hold the throne to the people’s satisfaction.”

“It can’t be serious enough to be thinking that far ahead,” Judar said.

“It doesn’t hurt. But you’re right. That can be avoided as long as we prove the rumor has a human origin.”

Finding the source of the rumor would prove it to be fictitious and seamlessly shift the blame from Judar to whoever spread the rumors with the intention to tarnish the Kou Empire’s reputation. It was a pretty smart plan, except for one thing.

“How would you know?” Judar asked. “It’s impossible to tell if someone said something or not, much less if they said it first.”

“W, well…”

“I mean, unless you already have an idea of who did it, it’d be pretty pointless trying to figure it out. Because you can’t prove it, right?”

Hakuryuu dropped his gaze to the floor, unsure but determined to find a solution. He stayed like that for some time, slowly looking less and less confidant. “Sorry,” he eventually said.

“Why?” Judar asked. “It was gonna happen sooner or later.”

“I should have done something to prevent it,” Hakuryuu said. “I’ll figure something out. Until then… well, you’ll be fine.”

“Of course I will. No human could kill me.”

\---

Hakuryuu announced his alterations to the country’s slavery system the next day. The shock of it took attention from Judar fairly well.

It helped that Hakuryuu had already informed Balbadd’s governors of the changes and set the system into motion in the places that needed it most, proving he was serious.

His timing was unbelievably lucky, too. It wasn’t the kind of sudden change that Titus was trying for in Reim, but it was the kind that would work best for Kou economically. In a few years there would be no slaves within the empire, and if slavery were abolished in Reim as well, Seven Seas countries like Heliohapt would be the last countries to allow it. The moral difference would push Reim farther from the side of the Seven Seas Alliance as long as Reim continued on the path Titus and Muu expected it to follow.

It was a great move no matter what angle he looked at it from. Just as Judar expected, Hakuryuu did a fine job of being emperor.

Judar was on orders to stay out of the inner palace for the time being to minimize discussion about his origins. He spent the day wandering around the less travelled sides of the palace, almost getting lost for how large it was more than once.

He used sound magic to amplify whispers and hear the rumors first hand, but everyone already knew the rumors. They’d already moved on to Hakuryuu’s imperial edict, for the most part. It was only when Judar passed someone that he heard whispers about himself with the help of his sound magic.

When he was long out of earshot they jumped straight to punishments, completely bypassing the reason he needed to be punished - that was a given. It was hard to tell if they were really scared of him when they weren’t face to face if they were just excited at the opportunity to learn whether siren guts were more fish or more human.

Like Hakuryuu would ever give them the satisfaction of knowing _that._

Judar returned to their room at sunset and waited on the bed for Hakuryuu. It was a little nostalgic having to wait until the sky turned orange to see him. The anticipation built in his chest easily as the light from the window grew dimmer, just the same as it used to.

Judar shot up from his spot lounging on their bed and walked over to greet Hakuryuu at the door when he entered. He’d only heard about his announcement second hand and his bashful smile when Judar told him he’d done well with his new edict was worth the wait.

“It doesn’t solve anything, though,” Hakuryuu said. “All it’ll do is bide time.”

“Yeah, but you’ve wanted to pass that since before the war, right? I remember you mentioning it.”

“It doesn’t feel like a victory, not with these circumstances. If I could just think of something…”

“Well, you’re in luck,” Judar said and smiled. “Today I did the thinking.”

Hakuryuu stared, lips parted like he wanted to object but he wasn’t sure how.

“Hey, don’t give me that! Look, I’m close to perfecting that spell. The one to make me look human. If I keep that up for awhile it’s as good as proof of being human, if it gets to that.”

“Okay…”

“And when it comes to finding the culprit I’ll leave the hard part to you. But if you find someone promising I can just use clairvoyance magic to see their memories. It’s useless if we have the wrong person, but at least we’ll know when we get the right one.”

Hakuryuu nodded, that dumb expression still on his face. Judar knew it well: it was his ‘too stressed to sleep well but too busy to get depressed’ face. Still, it was better than if he were just depressed. Less consequences and all.

“Tell me when you find someone,” Judar said. “I’ll prove it and give them a nice beating.”

“Continue to stay out of sight until then,” Hakuryuu said.

“Obviously. Besides, it’s not like I can practice magic in the middle of a courtyard.”

Hakuryuu nodded again, a second too slow. Yeah, he needed to relax. But Judar knew he wouldn’t be able to until he made some progress, so he let it be.

Judar got to work the following day.

The best place to practice used to be the beach, but he had something better for this purpose: the underground research facility. It kept him out of sight and out of mind, and it meant he was still doing something useful with his time. More than that, it had targets - something this spell required.

Most of the prisoners were too lifeless, minds rotten from years of experiments before Judar had ever seen them, to react to his reappearance. They didn’t do much more than scream even when he turned their insides around. They were bad company, but perfectly suited to their role as test subjects.

As bad as it felt to listen to them from the other side of bars where they couldn’t do anything to defend themselves, it wasn’t like they’d do anything even if they could. The only comfort they could get at this point in their lives was death, which Judar was pretty good at giving them by accident.

He was doing better, though. It didn’t take months or even weeks - in four days he was successful. What he’d learned in Reim practicing alchemic magic was far more useful than he’d expected. Much of what he’d learned with alchemic magic was easily be applied to new contexts, and paying attention to the order he was changing things in fixed the death rate at zero.

It took long enough.

Judar wiped the sweat from his face and smiled. He’d had the dead bodies from the day before removed already - or moved to another part of the facility for more experiments, for all he knew - and all the remaining prisoners were perfectly altered. It’d taken a lot of magoi, but he’d been looking forward to it for a long time. He didn’t want to wait another second.

He wasn’t going to use the spell on himself in the research facility, though. Of course not. He left the research facility and ordered someone to run him a bath.

Finally, after two years in the human world, he’d have something to show for it: the closest imitation of a human body he could create.

He shut the bathroom door behind himself, bolting it and shoving a towel in front of it for good measure. Hakuryuu said to not make careless mistakes, so he wouldn’t. Then he removed his clothes, his choker, his bracelets, and even his earrings. 

Just him, and the him reflected in the bath.

He cast the spell without a moment of hesitation. He’d practiced enough. It wasn’t like the magic for legs that he could mess up with as many times as he wanted - it had to be perfect on the first try or he’d die. He’d already been successful on many people. One more was nothing.

The spell took a few minutes to finish. Through the whole thing he felt like he needed to stick a hand inside his stomach and scratch at the impossibly itchy feeling of his insides moving around, but he dug his nails into his arms and endured until he finished.

When he looked at his faint reflection again, it had changed. He couldn’t tell if his gills or scales became any less visible and had to feel for them himself. They were still there. 

So it wasn’t a perfect mimic after all. The siren in the rukh who he got the spell from must have used light magic to hide them from humans to avoid the hunts. Judar could do that, too. There was just no point in it now because he couldn’t see his gills and scales in the reflection in the first place. The reflection was already human.

He turned this way and that, his braid swishing around as he did. His reflection wasn’t clear in the gray stone bath, but it worked well enough. Once he got tired of looking at his human reflection he broke it by placing a foot in the bath, then the other. It felt the same as always. His feet were the same as always, so of course it would.

He touched himself tentatively, not for gratification but to explore the boundaries of a feeling he’d never had. It was something new that he wanted to understand before sharing it with Hakuryuu.

It felt strange. Warm, but in a way that was different from how being kissed felt - no, this was how kissing felt to humans, too. It took time for it to go beyond that, but not as long as he’d expected. He could feel what he was reacting to, so it was easier to get results on himself than it was on Hakuryuu. He bit his lip and held his breath when he finished, a human inconsistency he never did figure out the reason for. It just felt like he needed to hold it or he’d miss something.

The feeling itself was anything but easy to miss.

If he were more of a romantic he would’ve saved feeling it for the first time for being with Hakuryuu. But he was impatient. He wanted to know what it was like beforehand so it wouldn’t catch him off guard.

Afterwards Judar changed clothes to sleep in and acted as normal. He’d tell Hakuryuu in a day or two, when he was used to it. It wasn’t that he meant to hide it anything, but Hakuryuu was still stressed from work anyway. They’d both enjoy it more if he wasn’t thinking of politics the whole time.

Sleeping next to Hakuryuu felt different. He was acutely aware of Hakuryuu’s hand on the side of his thigh when he curled closer even though it was a natural place to put it, and he wondered how many hundreds of times he’d subconsciously done the exact same thing to Hakuryuu. Maybe he was just sensitive from inexperience.

Still, it was hard to sleep. Judar could finally understand why Hakuryuu used to always tell him to go back to the couch after touching him too much. Humans bodies were sensitive, and if sex was an act of human love as well as an act of lust, then of course he was unable to recuperate while his mind was focused on his revenge.

Kissing Hakuryuu for only a second felt the same, but when their lips lingered and he could feel Hakuryuu’s breath on his face, it filled him with a strange feeling. Kinda wobbly, torn between wanting to push him into a wall and wanting to leave. That kind of strange.

It was less human feeling than he thought it would be. It didn’t control his mind or anything. It just _was_. A very strong, almost suffocating feeling, that he could experience or shy away from depending on if he pushed closer or pulled away. He’d never realized it before, but each time Hakuryuu let Judar touch him, he was surrendering the control of a very strong feeling. 

Hakuryuu had been showing him such a vulnerable side of himself for almost a year now. There was a lot of ground to cover to catch up to him in experience. Realistically, it’d take longer than a year for how much busier he was with the whole empire depending on him. Judar probably wouldn’t be able to keep that body up for a whole year if they didn’t go to war again, either.

Judar figured he’d tell Hakuryuu once he was allowed back in the inner palace. It seemed fair enough while the rumors waned, but that trend didn’t last long.

Just when Hakuryuu said it would probably be okay to return to his side at the throne, the rumors proved to be more persistent than a passing curiosity of the court.

Like waves climbing back up the shore after low tide, the rumors came back with twice the force. Annoyed at having been pushed to the side, those in favor of a demonstration came back to bother Hakuryuu as soon as they got the information to back their claims.

Judar ignored Hakuryuu’s orders and went to the inner palace to see what’d changed. Hakuryuu didn’t argue with him when he entered. Instead he let Judar take his spot at the throne’s side without comment.

This time they were holding scrolls and Judar’s presence wasn’t enough to make them scare them off.

“A Morphological Account of Sirens, a volume first published one hundred years ago in Musta’sim at the height of the siren crisis. If you look here, Your Majesty, you will see that the Lord Priest fits every description of a siren: hair longer than a human would allow it to grow, braided at all times as their culture dictates, always hiding his neck from view for fear of his gills being seen—”

“Judar fits every description of a human,” Hakuryuu interrupted. “Don’t allow your fear to rule you. Dismissed.”

“Your Majesty, if you’d please. Allow the strongest sailors from Youshuu to evaluate the situation.”

“There is no situation to evaluate. Dismissed.”

So it went for several more days. Hakuryuu didn’t have another distraction to offer, and it was becoming clearer with each coming day that the people were less and less willing to accept distraction as an answer. He was busy enough that Judar didn’t get to talk to him often - the inner palace lit with nothing but candles through the night was stuffy, and Judar preferred to sleep alone than listen to various officials whining after sundown. So despite his spell finally being complete, the time that they spent together was mostly wasted listening to accusation upon accusation.

The first few days Hakuryuu could deflect complaints fairly well. Then his responses started to run thin.

“Your Highness, I have family on the coast. They say sirens come into their town every few years, disguised as humans. But they aren’t human. They don’t have our empathy and love. We have to protect our country from them, imposters who would walk over our corpses for a nefarious purpose above our heads without a second thought.”

“…My apologies to your family… However, I believe the coasts to be adequately guarded.”

“Your Majesty! Have we learned nothing from the past? Allowing an evil to fester within the empire will lead to its demise, just as you said at your coronation. I trust that you will not overlook this.”

“I am dealing with it, yes…”

“Your Majesty. It would only take a moment to prove his humanity. Why do you hesitate?”

“…”

The officials were judging Hakuryuu as weak-willed and uncertain, as if they’d already forgotten the civil war. And maybe they had: they were nobles. None of them had ever seen the battlefield. None saw Judar’s magic in person. Smiting them for their rudeness towards the emperor and for underestimating his magic wouldn’t help his case, but it was tempting.

Instead Judar put a hand on Hakuryuu's shoulder to get his attention. He ignored a whining noble and spoke over him close to Hakuryuu’s ear. “This place is all stuffy. Let’s get some fresh air.”

Hakuryuu blinked. He’d been listening to complaints for so long that Judar’s completely normal request didn’t seem to make much sense, as it couldn’t be answered with “yes, I’m looking into it” or “you’re dismissed.” The constant criticism was getting to him.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Judar said, tugging Hakuryuu’s shoulder forward towards the door. “Come on, remember what fresh air is?”

Hakuryuu frowned. “Of course I do. But I’m busy.”

“No you’re not. It doesn’t matter even if you deal with their complaints at this point. They’ll keep repeating themselves like they have been since it started. You already know that. So come on, let’s get lunch or something.”

“…Oh, fine.”

Judar smiled. He guided Hakuryuu to the door by a hand on his back, just forceful enough to keep him from responding to anyone who looked at him doubtfully. It was a good thing Hakuryuu was so tired. Otherwise that’d never work.

Once he was outside of the inner palace he was a bit easier to talk to.

“Nothing’s ripe here in spring,” Judar said. “So I guess we’re having scallops.”

“What kind of logic is that? We don’t have scallops. They would have told me if a shipment arrived at the palace.”

“Must be cool being so important that everything’s presented in your name.”

“It’s not as fun as you think. Really, I keep telling you. I wish they’d just do their jobs instead of taking up my time to beg for praise.”

“That’s not true. You said before that you like not having to take inventory before deciding what to cook.”

“Well, food’s a special case. We’re having pork, by the way.”

“Fine,” Judar said. It could be worse.

Hakuryuu didn’t take his time cooking. He didn’t cook much anymore, not since becoming emperor, but when Judar pestered him to eat together he always insisted on making it himself. Either he didn’t want to seem lazy or liked showing off by finding the time for it, even though Judar didn’t like half of what he made and he knew it.

Or, come to think of it, maybe he just wouldn’t take a break to do something he enjoyed without Judar hassling him.

That didn’t stop Hakuryuu from slipping back into thinking about it as they ate, forgetting to follow along with the conversation or answer questions. It was annoying but tolerable while Judar was trying to eat, but when they were finished and walking back to it was suddenly exhausting just being around him.

Judar sighed loudly to get his attention.

“Really, Hakuryuu. You’re emperor. Does it _matter_ if none of them like you?”

Hakuryuu stopped. Judar stopped two steps in front of him. He didn’t expect to get that much of Hakuryuu’s attention. But it was good. He watched Judar like he expected to hear the solution to all of his problems, like he had after Gyokuen died.

“I mean, you can do whatever you want. Unless they find Koumei and Kouha no one’s going to challenge you. Deal with it however you’d like, just like what you did with Gyokuen and Kouen.”

Judar stepped closer, fixing Hakuryuu’s hair and clothes that smelled like the candles of the inner palace. He needed to be presentable if he wanted anyone to take him seriously.

“I’ll go along with whatever you choose to do,” Judar said. “But at least do something.”

Hakuryuu didn’t say anything but let his head fall to Judar’s shoulder. “You’re right,” he mumbled. He stayed there for a moment, almost relaxing, but it took longer than a few seconds to undo a week’s worth of stress. And Hakuryuu wasn’t willing to give it any more than that. He pulled away and headed back to work.

By the end of the day he sent out the second imperial edict of his reign, criminalizing the murder of sirens within the empire.

Judar had been expecting something different. A ban on complaints on the fact, perhaps, not making killing a siren the same as killing a human. Labelling it as murder.

To be honest, he was a little touched. No other country had ever made such a law. Hakuryuu’s father hadn’t done it despite marrying a siren, and even Pernadius in Scheherazade’s stories had turned a blind eye to it, preferring to act as if Scheherazade’s true identity was a game instead of a source of persecution if it became known to the public.

So the fact that Hakuryuu actually thought to do something about it was more than he’d expected. He didn’t know what to say when he saw Hakuryuu again in the evening.

Hakuryuu didn’t know what to say either. So they stood for a second in awkward silence.

Neither of them were good at these kinds of things.

“…I should have thought of it sooner,” Hakuryuu said. “It was such a simple solution.”

That was the thing: it wasn’t simple. It would’ve been way easier to turn a blind eye to it or get rid of Judar now that he’d accomplished his goal. Judar wasn’t sure how to put into words what he wanted to say so instead he settled for rubbing Hakuryuu’s head. Messing up his hair.

Well, it was already messed up thanks to the crown he’d just removed for the day. But still.

“I can take care of myself,” Judar said. “And if you were trying to get rid of the rumors, it was kinda pointless. Now you’ve pretty much proven that they’re right.”

Hakuryuu laughed. “Yes, I’m sure I really offended you. Must be why you’re trying so hard not to smile.”

“H-hey! Am not!”

“Are too. You’re biting your lip trying to hide it and everything. It’s really obvious.”

“Whatever!”

Hakuryuu smiled at his victory, and kissed Judar. Not the short kisses they’d exchanged sparingly the past week, either. A real kiss.

When it came down to it, those short kisses didn’t feel like enough. Especially since now Judar knew what ‘enough’ was supposed to feel like.

Judar returned the kiss eagerly, enough for Hakuryuu to pull away in surprise.

“What?” Judar asked.

Hakuryuu looked away. “I didn’t think you knew how to… um…”

“Wow, you’re gonna pick _now_ to insult my kissing skills?”

“No! I mean…”

“You’re terrible! But, you know, you’re right. It feels really different kissing with a body like yours. Now I kinda get why you think I suck at it.”

“When did you…” Hakuryuu started, then thought better of it. “You weren’t bad just now.”

“Just terrible,” Judar said before pressing his lips back to Hakuryuu’s.

Hakuryuu wasn’t very good at being romantic, despite how much he enjoyed hearing the romance novel of Scheherazade’s journal. It was so typical of him that it was endearing.

Hakuryuu pulled Judar’s body closer. It was better, but he still wanted more. If Hakuryuu had the time and the energy, he wanted it. Needed it. The feeling caught in his throat and he pushed back to grind against Hakuryuu.

“You’re so impatient.”

“You try waiting more than twenty years. Call me impatient after that.”

Hakuryuu tugged at Judar’s shirt. “Take this off.”

“Oh, now you’re gonna boss me around?”

“Stop complaining. You hate getting sweaty, right?”

“…Fine.”

Judar undressed. Hakuryuu did the same, averting his eyes politely - what the point was when he was about to do much more than look, Judar didn’t know - and when he finished undressing Hakuryuu only looked briefly.

It wasn’t Judar’s real body, so what it looked like past if it was convincing or not wasn’t important. Its function was much more interesting.

Hakuryuu eased him onto the bed, pushing just enough to get Judar where he wanted him without being forceful. “Lay down,” he instructed.

Judar did as he was told.

“I have a lot to make up to you. I meant to keep track but at some point I lost count,” Hakuryuu said, and parted Judar’s calves. “I know you’ve said that you won’t keep this magic up forever because of the cost, so I’d like to make it up to you while it lasts.”

He moved so his mouth was only inches away. Judar instinctively tried to squirm away, so Hakuryuu held his legs in place, then spread them.

“Tell me when to stop. I don’t want you to finish from just this.” His hot breath made it difficult to talk at all, much less complain at being bossed around - and really, thought it was a pain to be bossed around normally, it felt somehow different when Hakuryuu did it like this.

The feeling of his mouth and tongue was indescribable, and Judar moaned without realizing how loud he was. Hakuryuu took it as encouragement, and continued to move his tongue in a way that Judar recognized in the back of his mind as being the way Hakuryuu liked it.

Of course he’d been taking notes while getting his dick sucked. Typical.

He didn’t have to tell Hakuryuu to stop, and if he did, he probably would’ve forgotten to do so. Hakuryuu stopped on his own when Judar tried bucking into his mouth.

He looked at Judar’s face for a moment, pleased with how well he’d done.

“Should’ve gone all the way,” Judar said. “Then you could do whatever else.”

“You wouldn’t be in the mood anymore,” Hakuryuu said.

“Would too.”

“Would not. Do you know where you put that oil you kept in here all winter? For dry skin?”

Judar furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“You never did read a novel, did you? I think you’d like them. To laugh at, if nothing else.” Hakuryuu moved from the bed to look by the nightstand.

“Reading’s boring. They should just use pictures.”

“You’d take one look at them and assume they were diagrams and zone any pictures out too,” Hakuryuu said. He stood again with the oil bottle in hand. “It fell under the bed.”

Hakuryuu’s fingers felt weird, but not wholly unpleasant. It took Hakuryuu a few minutes to figure out exactly what he was supposed to be doing and how he was supposed to be doing it, but once he did, it felt good in a sort of muted way compared to being sucked off.

Then Hakuryuu pressed himself inside. There was nothing muted about that. He went slowly, just as much for himself to adjust to the feeling than for Judar to do so, if his gasp of pleasure was anything to go by.

Unlike in the past when he would only feel Hakuryuu’s hot breath when he thrust into Judar’s hands, Judar was barely aware of his breath over the feeling of being filled. He pushed slowly at first, pausing more often than he moved just to get used to the feeling, or to keep himself from impatiently going as fast as he wanted. That lasted only as long as his patience did.

When he came he dug his nails into Judar’s hips, only releasing them when he realized what he was doing.

They left a mark. Judar didn’t mind. Hakuryuu finished him with a few strokes from his hand, then pulled out.

Judar thought it’d be awkward to be in such a hazy state in front of Hakuryuu, but he didn’t mind. It was actually rather comfortable - he was a little too sweaty, a little too warm, and a little too dirty. But so was Hakuryuu.

Hakuryuu took a few minutes to clean himself up before returning with a damp towel for Judar to wipe some sweat away. He did so, and when Hakuryuu finally stopped moving, relaxed on top of him.

Hakuryuu ran a hand through his hair. “Going to go to sleep now?”

“Maybe.”

“I told you that you’d be tired.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Hakuryuu moved Judar off his lap to place his arm on the bedside table, then returned to the bed beside him. “You were really good,” Hakuryuu mumbled.

Judar rolled over to face him. “You’re not bad. I guess.”

“…Thanks.”

Judar laughed. “Payback for saying I can’t kiss.”

Hakuryuu rolled his eyes and pushed him. Judar pushed back. 

“That aside, you’re surprisingly submissive,” Hakuryuu said with a teasing tone. “I didn’t expect that from you.”

“Am not. I just forgot to tell you to shut up.”

Hakuryuu smiled meanly. “Only because you were too busy moaning. Really, if I didn’t know you better, I’d think you liked being told what to do—”

Judar shoved a pillow in Hakuryuu’s face, embarrassed. “Sh-shut up!!”

They spent some more time messing around and kissing without a care in the world. Tomorrow there would probably be something new for Hakuryuu to get stressed about, but he could take it. Despite what those guys in the palace thought, he was sturdier than he looked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~i hate saying this but because of irl obligations, continuing updating on a weekly basis would mean the quality of chapters would probably drop. would you guys prefer updates with a longer break between them (every two or three weeks) or a break then resuming weekly updates when i know i can post until the end of the story without a break?~~
> 
> officially off hiatus and on the home stretch!


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that break was a lot longer than intended (i ended up going out of the country for a couple months in addition to everything else), but it's back! i expect updates to continue every friday until it finishes, but there might be a couple weeks where i post oneshots instead. it's been awhile, and it doesnt have a lot of recap, so i recommend rereading the chapter before this, too

Hakuryuu was in a good mood. Well, better than usual. It wasn’t far above his baseline poor mood, but any improvement was nice.

Especially since that baseline mood of his had gotten significantly lower since taking the throne. Judar had believed all along that he’d return to normal, and being proven right was gratifying.

Judar figured it was a combination of his hard work paying off and being able to blow off his stress with sex. Hakuryuu was a needy person now that he knew Judar was enjoying it as much as he was, and he liked to spend a disproportionate amount of the time he had off work fucking.

Humans were very energetic when it came to sex. Judar didn’t mind. Actually, he really liked it. Being the number one thing Hakuryuu was looking forward to doing all day was great, and he wouldn’t give that up for anything. Even if it made him a little sore.

They wouldn’t have that problem if Hakuryuu was willing to take it for a change, but he was pretty lukewarm on the idea.

“It’s not that I can’t, but…”

“Enjoying it too much to change it up, aren’t you?”

Hakuryuu reddened but didn’t object. He was significantly more dominant in bed, something he was shy to own up to any other time. Even when he started out slow and affectionate, it often ended very roughly.

Sweaty and spent, he’d go back to affectionate as they lay together, kissing Judar’s neck with their legs tenderly entwined. He’d stay like that until their heartbeats returned to normal, and a little longer just to be close.

He could see why Hakuryuu looked forward to that intimacy so much.

It wasn’t that he was using it to escape from the political situation, either. Hakuryuu was pleased with the effect of his imperial edicts. They didn’t make him popular, but that was proof that it was working.

Many officials hated them and wished for the country to return to how Kouen ran it, but their hopes were in vain. Kouen was dead and now Hakuryuu was the one who decided the future of their lives and their country.

He said long ago that his goal was to make the country how it was when his brothers and father were alive. But he wasn’t doing a very good job of that - in the country his brothers lived in, sirens could be killed for no reason at all with no punishment at all. The decision to criminalize it was Hakuryuu’s own.

It took a few days for details of the new law to solidify. Selling siren scales was the main reason sirens died, so that became a crime as well. 

Hakuryuu put a lot of effort into making sure the laws created the fairest environment possible for sirens. It didn’t help with the social repercussions of the rumors, but it was funny knowing that the spoiled officials who hated the thought of the emperor sleeping with a siren couldn’t do anything about it now, afraid as they were of the fines and consequences of speaking their minds. They resorted to dirty looks. Enough of them that Judar was sure their faces would get stuck that way.

He had Hakuryuu, so it didn’t matter if all the other humans were afraid of him. Even so, Hakuryuu still wanted to figure out why it’d happened in the first place.

Every now and then he could convince Hakuryuu to spend time with him during the day now that he wasn’t as stressed. The imperial gardens were close enough to the inner palace that it was possible to steal Hakuryuu away to them for a snack between his audiences. He spent much of that time together talking about work, but that was to be expected. He was Hakuryuu, after all, and he’d just feel guilty if he slacked off while the sun was up.

“Nobody would have known that you were a siren but another siren,” Hakuryuu said. “Except… knowing that you’re a real magician, I suppose it could also be a human that once knew a siren. All it would take is a siren telling a human that magic isn’t something humans could do, and the possible suspects would rise to an unreasonable number.”

“No one would tell a human they can’t trust,” Judar said. “It shouldn’t go up that much.”

“But there will be humans who find out anyway,” Hakuryuu said. He’d figured out like that, after all. “And while borgs aren’t common knowledge, the fact that sirens must be killed with metal tools rather than by hand is. It’s possible that there are sailors who realized the reason for that was magic. I don’t think that’s enough for someone to figure out that you’re a siren, but it’s possible.”

“I dunno,” Judar said. “Humans are pretty dumb when a siren attacks them. Even if their spear slid off a borg they’d probably just think they missed.”

“That may be so. But there are also sirens like Titus who are rather open with the fact. Either way, the most likely culprit is one who knows a siren personally.”

“Yeah.”

“But if they did, the siren who told them in the first place might be outed. Unless they don’t fit any of those terms…?” Hakuryuu paused in his pacing. “That would make sense.”

“What?”

“I’m going to find that scroll the officials were using to try to incriminate you. I think it’ll make this easier. It’s strange that they were all using the same source.”

Judar watched him go. As much as he liked spending time with Hakuryuu, he wasn’t too keen in going into the library to do so. Hakuryuu would just make him look for it, too.

“I’ll wait here,” he called to Hakuryuu. With the sound of frogs echoing over water and through trees, the gardens didn’t feel as empty in summer as they did in late fall. It was easy to doze off to their sound.

Hakuryuu shook him awake when he returned. With the sun setting, the frogs had gotten louder to compete with evening cicadas.

Judar stretched. Falling asleep in a chair wasn’t the most comfortable, but it was better than some of the other places he’d fallen asleep in. When Hakuryuu was certain he wasn’t just going to fall back asleep, he sat in the other chair, scroll in hand.

“I think the rumors came from Sindria.”

“…Why?”

“This scroll - I found a copy of it in the archives - really does have a solid account of what sirens are typically like. From my experience, at least. Braided long hair, modest clothes that even cover the neck. Is that true of all sirens?”

“Titus only braids some of it.”

“You know what I mean.”

“It at least fits what everyone I know looks like.”

“Except for Yamraiha of Sindria. Correct?”

Judar thought for a moment. She was probably using water vapor or light magic to hide her gills. It made sense for a shallow water siren to have short hair, too, especially one that lived with humans. “I don’t know if all colonies keep long hair or not,” he said. “But it’s a lot of effort to have to hide your gills all the time. Way easier to just wear clothes.”

Hakuryuu nodded in agreement. “And even if it was spread by her and Sinbad, I still don’t know how they knew we were in Reim. But I think it’s worthwhile to look into the possibility. I won’t allow another country to interfere in Kou’s affairs.”

Judar smiled. As expected, Hakuryuu was able to come up with a solution and find the culprits in less than two weeks. He really was a good emperor. “Are you gonna send a letter to him like you did with Reim’s emperor?”

“That would arrive too late. It would be easier to just go there, as long as you remember to be polite. Or don’t say anything. I can do all the talking.”

Judar shrugged. He was sure Hakuryuu wouldn’t mind him talking after he’d gotten to say what he wanted to. Knowing him, it wouldn’t take long. “Are we gonna break into the palace?”

“The guards would retaliate. It’s best to get on the island without attracting attention.”

“Even if they do try to attack, they won’t get through my borg.”

“…That may be true. I guess it’s fine to transfer to palace gates. If you really want to.”

Judar grinned. “Do you even have to ask?”

Hakuryuu made him eat something before they left, claiming that it was best to have a full stomach when making demands. That logic didn’t make a lot of sense to Judar, but food did help wake him up. And he wasn’t going to complain if Hakuryuu was going to make all his favorites for him.

“Sindria is a small country. Are you sure you can transfer to it?”

“There are a lot of people there, right?”

“Yes. So many that all the streets are crowded during the day, with people walking shoulder to shoulder.”

“Then it should be easy. It’s hard to miss when there’s a huge gathering of rukh where we need to go.”

Hakuryuu bit his lip like he was still doubtful, but didn’t object when Judar opened a transfer circle focusing on the largest concentration of rukh he could find south of Balbadd. When he used clairvoyance magic through the circle, it was possible to determine the location of the gate through the thoughts of the people and change course accordingly.

He was sure it looked effortless enough to be impressive, but Hakuryuu had too much on his mind to comment on it. Not that he any comments would have been complements. He was kind of hard to please. That made trying fun, though.

Transferring to just in front of the palace gates was by far a more fashionable entrance than transferring to the outskirts of Remano or Balbadd. It saved the effort of walking, too.

Sindria was _hot_. Easily as hot as Rakushou’s summers. Thankfully the guards reacted fast enough to keep the heat from becoming unbearable. They raised their spears, shouting, until a circle was formed around them.

“Not a very warm welcome,” Judar said.

“What did you expect?” Hakuryuu asked, then cleared his throat to address the guards. “I am the fourth emperor of the Kou Empire, Ren Hakuryuu. We’re here to see King Sinbad.”

The guards looked like they wanted to argue, but the fact that Hakuryuu looked the part of emperor and had arrived in a suitably flashy way kept them from doing so. Unsure of what to do, the guards kept their circle to wait for orders.

The palace gates opened soon enough and a freckled retainer stepped out, expression neutral. “To what does our king owe this visit?”

“That is for King Sinbad and I to discuss.”

“…And your magician as well, I take it.”

“Yes.” If Hakuryuu realized the retainer shouldn’t have known Judar’s face he didn’t show it.

Judar sort of recognized him from when he had dinner with Sinbad and a couple of his generals he brought to Rakushou for Hakuryuu’s coronation. Freckles had spent all dinner glaring daggers at him. Jealous of his clear skin, most likely.

Then again, maybe he was always like that. He didn’t look any friendlier as he led them, still shouldered by guards, through the palace.

The palace itself was in a unique style. Hakuryuu wasn’t impressed, having already spent a significant amount of time in Sindria. But Judar thought the giant open air windows and balconies were impressive. They let the breeze in while the ceiling blocked the harsh sun, and soon he forgot the heat of outside.

Freckles brought them to the throne room where Sinbad was waiting, all smiles despite their sudden visit.

“If it isn’t Emperor Hakuryuu,” Sinbad greeted him. “Here I thought you didn’t want much to do with me anymore.”

“I have something to talk about. Alone.”

“You’ve brought Judar, so it’s only fair that I bring Ja’far,” Sinbad said. “Other than that, fine. Let’s go somewhere more private. We’ll need refreshments, too,” Sinbad said and motioned to a guard.

“That won’t be necessary. We’re only here to talk so we won’t be long.”

“What sort of conversation could you have come so far for?”

Hakuryuu dropped his fake smile in an instant. “You’re well aware.”

“I haven’t done anything wrong,” Sinbad said. “Don’t look at me like some sort of villain.” He stood and walked towards the door, Ja’far in tow. 

“At least let us prepare some snacks,” Sinbad said. “I’d feel like a bad host otherwise.”

Judar elbowed Hakuryuu to tell him to accept. Even though he’d just eaten, he was hungry from using transfer magic. Sindria was far and getting back home would be easier with something in his stomach.

“…I have no objections to food,” Hakuryuu mumbled. Sinbad sent a guard to get some accordingly.

Sinbad brought them to a bright balcony-side parlor. It was much warmer, having been lit by the sun all day, but neither Sinbad nor Ja’far reacted much to the difference in temperatures.

Judar was suddenly glad he lived in Kou. Reim was one thing, but in Sindria it’d be insufferable wearing enough clothes to cover his gills and scales. Maybe that was why Yamraiha wasted the magoi on hiding them.

Sinbad sat and motioned for Hakuryuu and Judar to sit and relax, though Judar would rather drop a layer of clothes first. He almost pitied Hakuryuu for wearing his emperor robes to such an uncomfortably hot place, but he knew it’d be hot. If he wanted to suffer to look important, that was on him.

Sinbad’s retainer alone remained standing, arms crossed under his sleeves. From the way he was watching Judar was pretty sure he couldn’t tap his fingers without him noticing.

“Ja’far, you can relax. I’ll be fine.”

“Sin…”

Sinbad patted the spot beside him. Unlike Caluades, he wasn’t nervous at all - his rukh moved in a strangely carefree pattern that looked foreign to Judar’s eyes. Hakuryuu’s rukh was more worried in comparison, and they were supposed to be the intimidating ones. Good thing he was the only one that could see it.

When Ja’far sighed and sat, Sinbad leaned back in his chair with his arms crossed. “Let’s hear it,” he said to Hakuryuu, as if expecting an interesting story.

“Why have you spread rumors within Kou’s borders?” Hakuryuu asked. Though his voice didn’t waver, he didn’t sound as confident as Sinbad did. Judar took a candied date from the snack tray. He could be the confidant one, if need be.

“What proof do you have?” Sinbad asked.

“Judar knows clairvoyance magic. It would take no longer than a few minutes to verify.”

Sinbad smiled. “Of course. In that case, you’re correct. I ordered for the rumors of his being a siren to be spread. But I haven’t done anything wrong. They’re nothing more than words. I am not guilty of having committed a crime on Kou’s soil.”

Hakuryuu wasn’t sure what to say, so Judar helped him out. “Why’d you do it? Are you that scared of us?”

“Are you so scared of rumors that you’d come all this way over one?” Sinbad countered.

“Obviously not. We’ve taken care of it just fine. But it pisses me off that you did it in the first place,” Judar said.

Hakuryuu kicked him under the table but continued where Judar left off. “Kou’s business is Kou’s. I didn’t use your power to win the civil war. I have no debt to you. As such, further interference will be detrimental to our countries’ relationships, no matter if they’re as simple as spreading rumors or not. The Kou Empire is my country to run and you have no place in it, King Sinbad.”

“Not so inexperienced now, are you?” Sinbad asked. “That’s good. Keep it up.”

Judar stood, irritation spiking. “Don’t talk down to us.”

“I wasn’t. It was merely a complement.”

Hakuryuu tugged on Judar’s robes to tell him to sit back down. “It doesn’t affect the issue at hand either way,” Hakuryuu said. “The point of our visit was to make sure that this doesn’t continue.”

“And how do you plan to do that?” Sinbad asked.

“The Kou Empire will end all trade with the Kingdom of Sindria. That’s all for the time being, but if it continues I won’t hesitate to use more forceful measures.”

“Stopping trade with Sindria is the same as stopping trade with the entire Seven Seas Alliance,” Sinbad said. “Will that really be okay? What of Sasan’s metals?”

“The mountains of the Go region are rich in metals as well. They may not be as beautiful, but they are more suited for use on weapons than the gold and silver from Sasan.”

“I see,” Sinbad said. “Understood. Then I have just one more question. Do you think that anything will come of this?”

Hakuryuu frowned.

“Say our countries never trade again,” Sinbad said. “My people will face no serious repercussions - our countries never had the strongest of trade relationships. Nor will yours - precious metals and other luxury items will be your only real loss. What then? The world will be at a standstill.”

“The world…?”

“Yes. Your side of the world and my side of the world will never mix. Are you okay with that?”

“The world becoming one was Kouen’s ideal. Not mine.”

“If I recall, it was the late Emperor Hakutoku’s will as well.”

Hakuryuu tensed.

“Emperor Hakuryuu, I must admit that I’m concerned. When you told me of your plan you said it was to return the country to its original state. Instead you’ve moved it in an entirely new direction.”

Sinbad was good at finding Hakuryuu’s weaknesses. As impressive his ability to see right through him was, it was in Judar’s best interest to keep him from digging too far into it and riling Hakuryuu up too much.

Still, he couldn’t just let that comment go. “Because he’s emperor,” Judar said. “He can rule the country in any way he sees fit.”

“…And yet I worry all the same. Because this is how selfish kings are born.” This time Sinbad was the one who rose, walking to the balcony. “It’s almost sunset. You should return soon.”

Judar stood but made no move to leave. Instead he took a few steps towards Sinbad. Enough for his retainer to reach for what was probably a weapon.

“Hakuryuu is selfish, but he isn’t weak. Stop acting like he is.”

“I never said he was.”

“Your country is tiny,” Judar said. “And I have a spell I’ve been wanting to try out.”

“Is that a threat?” Sinbad asked.

“As much of a threat as telling a whole country they could get rich off my corpse.”

Sinbad’s rukh jerked just enough to be noticeable. He was calm, yes, but not impenetrably so.

“You’re a siren,” Sinbad said. “You know that. And yet you spend all your time in the human world, choosing not to help us, but instead to create suffering. To fight wars. I tried to understand why during our talk in Rakushou. I thought you would surely have a personal conviction or a thousand-year conclusion that no human could come to. But you didn’t have anything like that. You haven’t committed yourself to anything, nor have you lived long enough to do so, by siren standards. You have no ideal to live for but you continue to do things like threaten to destroy my country. Isn’t that strange?”

“I’m selfish, too,” Judar said. “You’re a human. You should be used to selfishness.”

“I’ve seen sirens like you before,” Sinbad said. “They think of humans as no more than ants and laugh when we try to become happy. You aren’t a higher being. You killed many people for a goal that doesn’t exist, and I can’t forgive that. That’s all there is to it.”

Sinbad turned with his back to the slowly setting sun and smiled. He was confidant. But his confidence couldn’t be anything more than a facade - a human could do nothing. Still his smile only grew.

“I grew up by the sea,” Sinbad said. “My father was a sailor.”

“…So?”

Sinbad’s expression changed in a split-second, eyes widening just enough for Judar to know there was something wrong. He unsheathed his sword and lunged forward.

The sword hit Judar’s borg dead-on and slowed. But it didn’t stop. Before Judar understood what was going on Hakuryuu pushed him back hard with an arm in front of his chest.

The sword cracked through his borg and slashed up Hakuryuu’s wooden arm, stopping inside his elbow. Sinbad’s smile didn’t fade even as Hakuryuu cried out in pain - he pulled his sword back roughly and sheathed it as if he’d never moved.

When Judar held out his staff to get back at him, a flash of metal knocked it away, rolling a few feet away. Sinbad’s damned retainer. Of course he’d been there for defense.

Sinbad locked eyes with Judar. That smile was getting on his nerves. “If it weren’t for Emperor Hakuryuu, you’d be dead right now.”

“…”

“Magoi manipulation. I learned it from the Yambala tribe. Did Shambal ever tell you how he taught it to crews of sailors he journeyed with before settling in the colosseum, Emperor Hakuryuu? It’s very effective against sirens.”

Hakuryuu gritted his teeth. Of course he didn’t know something like that - he never even tried talking with the Yambala tribe outside of practice.

“I’ll ask once more. Will you join the Seven Seas Alliance?”

“No,” Judar said. “And don’t go telling me to watch _my_ back. You may be strong, but you’re just a human.” He picked up his staff.

Hakuryuu walked to Judar’s side as if worried that Sinbad would lunge again. “Judar—”

Judar grabbed Hakuryuu’s arm roughly - it was annoying that he was trying to put himself on the line when he was so much easier to kill - and opened a transfer circle. “You’re a human king of a country of humans. I can think of nothing more fun to destroy.” He walked through the circle, tugging Hakuryuu along with him by the hand.

Hakuryuu’s hand didn’t feel like it should be as sweaty as it was in the peaceful palace courtyard his magic brought them to. Judar didn’t let go even once he adjusted to the cool night breeze.

The sun set earlier in Kou. The crickets were already singing to the night sky and their cold sweat. It was starkly different from the way the sunset burned into his skin in Sindria, and instead of being refreshing, the dissonance was so disorienting that all he could do was stand there for a moment.

“Maybe we should just join,” Hakuryuu mumbled.

“And throw away all your hard work? You wouldn’t really hand Kou over to Sinbad so easily, would you?”

Hakuryuu hesitated, and Judar felt it in his weak hand. A lack of conviction.

“You killed Kouen,” Judar said. “What would change by killing Sinbad?”

“Do you want him dead?”

…It wasn’t about if he wanted it or not.

It was that it was the next step in the script they followed. Whether they or anyone else really wanted it didn’t matter. There was nowhere else Judar could move forward. His worth was in his strength, useless if he didn’t use it.

Judar let go of Hakuryuu’s hand and walked a bit to lean against a tree and look at him. “Don’t you think things have gone the way Sinbad wants for too long?”

“He’s worked hard, just as we have.”

“We don’t have to kneel to him. We’re not his subordinates.”

“He’s capable of killing you,” Hakuryuu said. “Don’t you care?”

Judar shrugged. “If he can do it, he deserves my head.”

Hakuryuu frowned. Though Judar had only put a small amount of distance between them, he looked far away. “We have the advantage of your transfer magic… if Yamraiha doesn’t use something similar already.”

“Yeah. But I don’t think they’ll really come to assassinate us in our sleep for not joining the alliance. Doesn’t look good for them.”

Hakuryuu nodded. “You’re right, but…”

“But…?”

“I don’t like the risk. He could create a false incident easily, and pin the blame on someone else.”

“Nobody does that.”

“My brothers died that way. The official explanation was that it was an attack from the Gai resistance, but really it was my mother who planned and executed it.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean _why_?”

“Seems like a lot of effort.”

“Because she wanted the crown.”

Judar frowned. He’d never told Hakuryuu about Gyokuen’s last words. She didn’t seem in her last moment to be someone who lived entirely for power - if that were true, why blow up her rukh? It would have made more sense to use a spell to bind her body back together to live even after its first death.

But she didn’t. Her body was disposed of in pieces, exactly how it died. He saw to it while Hakuryuu was recovering.

Telling Hakuryuu that would only stress him out more. There were admissions that caused no harm, and that was one of them. “Gyokuen gave Kouen more power to rule than she gave herself,” was what he ended up saying.

“What are you trying to say?”

“I dunno. Nothing, I guess. It’s just weird.”

“Kouen thought so as well,” Hakuryuu mumbled. “But he didn’t know what it meant, either.”

Judar glanced at Hakuryuu’s bloodied elbow. He was holding the cloth of his sleeve to it to stop the bleeding, and didn’t look pained. But he was Hakuryuu. Whether he let pain become distracting or not had more to do with if he wanted to be distracted than how bad the wound was.

“I’ll bandage your elbow,” Judar said. “Then let’s go to sleep.”

“I want to think about it a little longer first.”

“No. Come sleep with me.”

“Judar…”

“You’re so stubborn. I’m not too happy with you for taking my hit, but I’m gonna bandage you anyway, see? So you should be thankful and go to sleep.” Judar pulled him towards their room until Hakuryuu gave up resisting and walked with him.

Judar removed Hakuryuu’s artificial arm once he got him to sit still and bandaged the bloody stump. The wound wasn’t as bad as it could have been. He’d be fine.

Might need a new arm, though. This one had a huge cut, dried blood mixed so far in its chipped wood and splinters that cleaning it would be impossible.

“You can’t really be mad I took your hit?” Hakuryuu said. “He was aiming to kill you. You really would have died.”

“Then he’d win,” Judar said simply.

“You’d let your stubbornness be your death?”

“Good of a hill to die on as any.”

Hakuryuu bit his lip.

“What’s wrong, Hakuryuu?”

“I told you before,” Hakuryuu mumbled. “I really like you. By now I’m certain that I love you. Please stop acting like nothing would change even if you died. I know that… you probably don’t feel the same about me, but… I wouldn’t be able to bear it if something happened to you.”

“Don’t underestimate yourself,” Judar said. “You’re pretty durable.”

“It’s not that I’m underestimating myself. Sometimes I think you overestimate me.”

“Why?” Judar asked. “Even if I died you’d still have to get even with Sinbad, so you’d keep going and do it. Don’t you think it’s better to have an enemy?”

Hakuryuu’s mouth parted in simple understanding. He looked from Judar’s lips to his eyes. “Is that why you’re in a good mood?”

Judar forced his mouth into a neutral expression. He hadn’t realized that he’d been smiling.

“You were in a good mood when we were in Reim, too, trying to figure out how to best deal with them. Sometimes I think you like to fight more than anything else.”

Judar shrugged. If fighting was what would keep Hakuryuu living, he was happy to do it. “Speaking of Reim, isn’t it about time we used the information they gave us?” Judar asked. “I mean, if we don’t use them, Sinbad will. Can’t we just get them in on it and get the upper hand?”

Hakuryuu frowned at the obvious change in topic, then shook his head. “Reim’s emperor won’t be on the throne much longer. He wouldn’t agree on anything more drastic than trade when we were there and that will be true for the rest of his rule. We won’t know who will be on the throne next until the election, either, and it’s possible whoever it is will be more partial to the Alliance than Emperor Caluades is.”

“What a drag. After we went through the trouble of visiting and everything.”

“That wasn’t for nothing. We have a diplomatic record with them now, which is better than what could be said of our countries’ previous relationship.”

“Well, whatever,” Judar said. “I’m sure you’ll think of something good tomorrow.”

Hakuryuu didn’t respond.

Judar angled his head back up to kiss him. Since Hakuryuu had believed that he needed to accomplish his revenge whether he was capable of it or not, Judar didn’t learn about this side of his until recently. Despite his strong resolve, Hakuryuu was easily discouraged by the small things.

He was certain that Hakuryuu was underestimating his ability to think his way out of problems. But Hakuryuu might be right when he said it would be difficult for him if Judar died. He had no one else to encourage him, after all.

\---

It didn’t take a genius to figure out why Hakuryuu was sulking, but that didn’t make it any less frustrating. Especially since he’d been in a good mood the week before their visit to Sindria for the first time in a long time.

Hakuryuu was upset because Sinbad had tried to kill Judar, even if it was the most half-assed assassination attempt he’d ever seen - one meant only to intimidate, not to kill. He was upset because Judar didn’t care. He was upset that Judar couldn’t give him the same love that he felt in return.

It was stupid because Judar did like Hakuryuu, more than anything, and he did want to spend more time together than what dying to Sinbad’s sword would have given them.

Then again, if he died he’d be dead and he wouldn’t have to think about it anymore. So it didn’t really matter then, making it fine.

Judar wasn’t sulking. He was avoiding Hakuryuu in return because he was petty.

Yes, Judar could coddle him like he had after Gyokuen’s death, effectively nursing him back to health. Then they could go back to fucking and cuddling or whatever all the time. But he didn’t feel like it.

What was he even upset about?

He couldn’t figure that out and it was irritating.

Judar channeled that irritation into practicing magic. He wanted something easy, so he chose clairvoyance magic to kill time with.

He’d copied a messy formula from the library in Reim that was supposed to be more effective than the one he’d been using - while his formula relied on the closest memory to the surface of the rukh - what the subject was currently thinking about - to function, this one relied on the thoughts of the caster.

With the old formula, Hakuryuu had to think of the memory he’d wanted to use as proof of Kouen’s villainy to project it to the rukh of others. With the new formula Judar would have to know the memory he wanted to see from Hakuryuu’s mind and think of it to see it and project it. The projection part was Judar’s own making and he was still pretty proud of it, so figuring it out with this formula was a priority.

All in all, Judar could think of more uses for the original formula. But it couldn’t reach forgotten memories. The new one should be able to.

It took a few tries to get right, but with his past experience with clairvoyance magic it was simple. Maybe it was just because he was casting it on himself, though. It was probably a little more difficult to cast on someone else.

He practiced on pointless memories like he’d done before. Memories of things he’d done with Hakuryuu would just be irritating while they were avoiding each other, so he went for memories of the sea.

Those were boring, though. He could only stand to hear so many of Scheherazade’s stories of heroism and love in one lifetime, and he was pretty sure he’d long exceeded what was a tolerable amount.

The memory he most wanted to see was what had happened in his colony. He tried to find it as soon as he was confident it would work.

He tried to look into the earliest memory his rukh could see, and was greeted with a blue so dark it was nearly black.

A voice he couldn’t recall filled the darkness.

“…Hehe, with such a cute name, I just know you’ll grow up cute.”

“It’s your kid, so I’m sure cute isn’t the end of it. Loving, beautiful, a little bit of an airhead…”

“Hey! That last one wasn’t a compliment!”

They laughed. Carefree and youthful, at that moment they were more focused on each other than Judar. His eyes weren’t focused and he couldn’t see more than dim blurs of color.

Not that he could expect a sensible memory from a baby.

He watched for hours. Those two sirens were his only company in the dark, and talked to him often. Occasionally his eyes would focus on their faces or scales, making them clear in the reflection. Once or twice others in the colony came by to see him, too, commenting on how much he looked like his mother.

Judar had to agree. Seeing someone who looked so much like him was foreign and uncomfortable. He instinctively disliked it.

But he was glad that he could see her, just once.

He didn’t know how old he’d been when his colony was destroyed, but it was probably longer than the beginnings of his memories. He couldn’t possibly watch to it in one day.

He let the memory die and swirl back into a reflection of the present on the water’s surface. He set it to the side and lay down. The force made water splash from the bowl onto his sleeve.

He repeated that name.

It felt strange on his tongue. Like it didn’t belong to him at all and never had.

Again and again and again. Until it sounded more like gibberish than a real name.

His face heated up as he said it. Did it have to be so embarrassing?

He hadn’t spoken with Hakuryuu all day. But he wanted to tell him about this new word, just a little bit.

Hakuryuu would tease him for sure. But he would be happy to know.

…He was done with being petty. It wasn’t that important, anyway. Hakuryuu wasn’t thinking when he did it. He didn’t protect him because he thought Judar was weak. It was instinctual. It was obvious by his rukh. So a couple days of avoiding each other was more than long enough.

He cared about Hakuryuu enough to risk his life for him, and he’d done so many times already without ever regretting it. Judar also had no one else. He also wanted to spend as much time as possible together, whether they were being intimate or arguing.

That was a good thing, but it was also very dangerous.

He hadn’t been happy in winter after Hakuryuu showed him the heights of his determination in war. Now it was mid-spring and he knew many things about Hakuryuu that would have disappointed him when they first met.

But he wasn’t any less interested. And that was dangerous.

Avoiding danger wasn’t one of his strong points. Neither was apologizing, but he had to do something.

It was nearly sundown, but that didn’t stop Judar from visiting the inner palace. The guards whispered about how the emperor’s favorite never needed an official audience and the scribes gossiped a little too loudly about how Hakuryuu would just throw him away when he was old and not so pretty anymore, so he shouldn’t walk around with that conceited look on his face all the time.

Jokes on them, he’d always be young and pretty. But that was beside the point.

Hakuryuu was happy to see him for all of a second before he remembered they were in disagreement and looked a little more unsure than happy.

Judar put a hand on his waist and leaned close to see what he was looking at. It was some proposal by an official to repeal the ban on the murder of sirens.

“They’re very persistent,” Hakuryuu mumbled. “This is the second one that’s been submitted this week alone.”

“It’s not important then, right? It’s pretty much sundown. Come back with me.”

Someone gasped like they weren’t used to his blatant flirting while Hakuryuu was working. New staff, undoubtedly.

Hakuryuu rerolled the proposal and sighed. “I won’t accept any changes to the ban. Nothing will make me change my mind. Dismissed.”

The official he’d been seeing frowned, but stood and left obediently regardless.

“I’m surprised you even give them the time of day,” Judar said once they left the inner palace.

“I don’t. They schedule with a different concern, then when they’re here complain about that again. They even manage to weave it into their concerns about the embargo on the Seven Seas Alliance.”

“How?”

“Without scales to cushion the economy, they say that Kou will fall behind the Seven Seas Alliance and even Reim. They’ve brought a significant amount of evidence in from the archives about how it’s what coastal towns are funded by, and that by removing their main source of trade they’ll be hit the hardest, so I’ll have to come up with a solution to that now, too.” Hakuryuu sighed.

“Sounds pretty annoying. They’re on a coast. It’s not like they can’t just fish if they run out of money.”

“I know you don’t, but occasionally humans get tired of eating fish.”

“That’s what clams are for.”

Hakuryuu smiled. It was good to see after giving each other the cold shoulder the past couple days.

They ate dinner together, cooked by a chef who wasn’t busy listening to complaints all day, and by the time they returned to their room Judar was ready to swallow his pride for a second and say it.

“Sorry,” he muttered. He might be saying it, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.

Hakuryuu was just as surprised as Judar was that he actually went through with saying it, judging by his expression. But if he was mature enough to apologize for mistreating Judar all that time ago, it was the least Judar could do to apologize for being more of a brat than usual.

“I thought you’d be happier now that we have a real enemy again, too. That’s why it made me happy,” Judar mumbled. “That’s all.”

“…I should apologize as well,” Hakuryuu said. “I let King Sinbad unnerve me, knowing that our army was still too weak for war. I’m working on fixing that. Next time, he won’t get off with just a warning.”

Hakuryuu smiled. Not like he was happy - though it may have been a type of happiness in itself. It was the same smile he showed the people of Kou as he rose to power, killing for the sake of a revenge he knew he was only following for selfish reasons.

It was a smile that meant he was alive, so he’d fight again.

When Judar met his lips he kissed back eagerly, arms curling around Judar’s back to pull him tighter.

Judar would never get tired of Hakuryuu’s enthusiasm when it came to pushing him against a wall.

He always lived up to Judar’s expectations in the end. Even if he sometimes needed a little nudging in the right direction.

It didn’t take long for Hakuryuu to have him on the bed, handling him just roughly enough that Judar was sure he was trying to be gentle.

Trying.

He wasn’t very good at ‘gentle’ when he was turned on. Patience was a shitty virtue anyway.

When he was finished he cleaned up for the both of them, running a cold towel over Judar’s sweat-covered cheeks and bangs, looking at him like he was captivated.

He curled around Judar, laying his head on his shoulder contentedly.

When he said that he liked Judar the first time, Judar had been acutely aware of the flaw in his reasoning: he only liked Judar because he was there with him. It could have been anyone. But now he was starting to understand. Love wasn’t a feeling that existed all at once. It had to be built, slowly and painfully, from nothing.

It was probably a coincidence that he met Hakuryuu. It certainly wasn’t some great act of destiny. Actually, it was probably the opposite. If there was a god as Gyokuen said, if they were kind, they probably tried to avoid bringing people like them together. They’d done a lot of bad things as a result of meeting that could never be undone.

If they really had met by chance, and still managed to become like this, then that was a comfort far greater than the existence of a kind god would be.

“One more thing,” Judar mumbled.

Hakuryuu shifted to face him to show he was awake and listening.

“I figured out how to see some old memories. With clairvoyance magic, I mean.”

“Go on.”

“My name, uh…”

“What about it?”

Judar didn’t mean to say it as quietly as he did, but when it came out, it was more like mumbling. 

“That’s your name? Your real one?”

Judar nodded.

Hakuryuu blinked. Repeated it. He smiled, looking over Judar’s face to associate the name with his features. Repeated it again.

“H, hey… it’s kind of embarrassing, so just call me Judar.”

“It doesn’t suit you at all.”

“I didn’t ask!”

“It makes you sound so sweet,” Hakuryuu said. He repeated it again and again, laughing at the face Judar made every time he heard it.

“Stop saying it!!”

Hakuryuu laughed, breathy and warm, and kissed him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sinbad built the seven seas alliance up using a number of underhanded tactics, and continued to be fairly underhanded in magi (though he comes off as a pretty good person still because his generals and alibaba adore him). without metal vessels to intimidate with to avoid any fighting at all, his methods would need to be a little different


	28. Chapter 28

As much as Judar would have liked to go straight for Sinbad’s throat, Hakuryuu was adamant about fixing the problems his recent imperial edicts had on Kou’s economic situation first.

It wasn’t terrible or anything, but Hakuryuu had always been a worrywart. He was afraid of it getting worse if he didn’t do anything about it, especially knowing that Sinbad had no qualms about messing with their country to get the upper hand in politics.

The eventual end of slavery would have consequences in the long run, but for now, Kou had roughly the same amount of slave labor as the year before. The lack of new slaves to take the place of old ones was a problem for next year and the year after. The real problems right now were on the coast.

Most of the Kou Empire was terrestrial. It wasn’t the kind of place that saw lots of sirens outside of Balbadd and a few other coastal cities, mostly those around the warm Yellow Bay.

Those were the places that retained the highest amount of siren violence in the aftermath of Hakuryuu’s new laws. Hatred and fear of sirens spanned many generations and almost every report of unlawful siren killings came from sailors, who were probably making ends meet after losing their jobs sailing abroad for trade by selling scales on the black market.

Aside from Sinbad, who had gotten off with nothing more than a warning, it was Hakuryuu’s biggest headache.

“I think part of the problem is that those regions have historically been poor,” Hakuryuu mumbled. “It’s more difficult to send resources the farther a city gets from Rakushou, and with our army’s reduced power and morale following the war, there have been more reports of bandits along the empire’s edges as well, likely from deserters. Those towns are facing the brunt of that problem as well.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“I’m not sure… It’s gotten worse without trade from the Seven Seas Alliance, too. It seems that not every sailor is willing go all the way to Reim, and fishing isn’t very profitable without scales. Maybe King Sinbad was right. Banning trade to the Seven Seas has affected the country more than I thought it would.”

Hakuryuu had announced the cessation of trade soon after returning from Sindria. The people of Kou were used to sudden and unexplained changes in foreign policy and the officials of Rakushou didn’t have much of an objection as it wouldn’t affect them directly. That wasn’t true of the coastal regions.

Many families were left without jobs, unable to use their ships for trade or for siren hunts.

Judar shrugged. “Just tell everyone to come to Rakushou if there’s nothing else to do on the coasts. You can keep a closer eye on them here anyway.”

“That won’t work. They don’t know how to do anything but fish and kill sirens, but fish don’t stay well long enough to feed the whole empire with. Preserving them is one idea. And I suppose I could have them trained to fish inland? The Ryou River runs from that area, surely there’s something they could do there… or was it being used for irrigation? I can’t remember…”

Judar listened as Hakuryuu thought out loud. He was unbelievably stressed after hearing complaints from other cities’ governments that he hadn’t thought of, and had invited them to Rakushou to voice their complaints in full. Those turned out to be numerous, and they didn’t even mind journeying to Rakushou in the rainy season for it.

“Maybe the Li River would be better? Oh, but I think it’s through the mountains. It may be difficult to get anyone to agree to go there, aside from the area that’s near Youshuu.” Hakuryuu looked up. “Sorry, I’m going to go to the library for a bit to double check.”

“It’s already dark. Can’t you just do it tomorrow?”

“It’ll never get done if I put it off.” With that, he left.

Judar sunk into his pillow. “Whatever.”

As expected, Hakuryuu had a few proposals drafted in no time. The southern rivers were already being used by families who had lived there for generations, so he decided against having ocean fishermen retrained there. Instead he wanted to offer benefits to ocean fishermen and former tradesmen who were left jobless.

Offering education to the coasts was the best he could do - he couldn’t offer hard cash because it was still being used to repair damage from the war, but improving the schools and sending craftsman there to take apprentices would have a positive effect in several ways: it would distribute the educated along the coasts instead of just staying concentrated in the capital, which was what tended to happen due to the national exam system, and it’d add an increased need for fishermen in the first place by increasing the population.

The only problem was finding a pool of teachers and craftsman willing to go to the coasts, which were currently the least safe areas in the empire. Guards would have to accompany them.

Or he could just bypass the economic bullshit and send in a few hundred soldiers to straighten the fishermen’s backs. There was a reason Hakuryuu didn’t ask for Judar’s opinion on politics unless they were alone. Still, he sorta got the point and agreed that a stricter government could prove useful.

Judar sat in on a few of his audiences to see if he could find time to steal Hakuryuu away in the middle. That didn’t go so well, but he heard some interesting things. Hakuryuu finding his confidence again as a ruler now that he had something to strive for was something Judar was especially glad to hear.

“Your Highness. No educated individuals have applied to go to the coasts yet.”

“Appoint them as needed. Whether they complain or not doesn’t matter.”

“Your Highness, about my daughter…”

“I have no personal interest. I apologize.”

Ooh, cold. The nasty look the minister gave Judar, the obvious cause of Hakuryuu’s disinterest in women, made it that much better.

“Hey,” Judar said to Hakuryuu once the minister was excused and no one was listening. “Can’t you just send the concubines off to the coasts? They’re all rich girls like that guy’s daughter, so they’ve all been educated. And it’s not like they have anything better to do.”

“They’re too sheltered. Going to an unfamiliar province all the sudden would be traumatic for them.”

“They can take care of themselves. It’s not like they’ll be sheltered forever once they leave.”

“And what if something were to happen to them?” Hakuryuu asked. “I’d much rather send their fathers, anyway. They’re some of the loudest, always complaining that I can’t remember their daughters’ names… I wish they’d go through the effort to find a more suitable husband for them instead.”

Judar laughed. The sound made the guards jerk their heads towards them to scowl like his laughter was a deadly plot to steal their easily swayed emperor’s heart.

Maybe it was.

“Hey, come eat with me,” Judar said. “You’ve been in here all day. I’m bored.”

“I’m always in here all day. You’re free to go eat and do something more interesting, though.”

“But you must be hungry?”

“I promised to meet with the Youshuu region’s army officials over lunch, sorry.”

“Well, whatever. Guess I’ll get back to training, then.”

Judar continued his magic training while Hakuryuu was busy with emperor things. He had a few things to do: first of all, he wanted to see the destruction of his colony via clairvoyance magic. For closure if nothing else.

It took a few days to find the right place. It was easy to get distracted after hearing the voices of his parents and he sometimes watched for hours before remembering he had something he was looking for, and it wasn’t their smiling faces.

Even if he got to know what kind of people they were through his rukh, they’d never know what kind of a person he was. It was one-sided, and that made it uncomfortable.

If it weren’t one-sided, if they could see him now, he was sure he’d get a real scolding. He’d done nothing but bad things since their deaths. As parents, they’d be seriously disappointed.

He wondered if Hakuryuu ever felt like that about his brothers. 

On the third rainy day of watching old memories in a row, he found it. It happened when he was nearly a year old. It wasn’t personal, not from Gyokuen’s end. She had a goal that could be accomplished with their blood, and screams weren’t enough to stop her. Of course they weren’t. Anyone who was prepared to kill was prepared to hear screams.

He expected Gyokuen to kill everyone. He didn’t expect her to take notice of him after the fact.

“My, what a cute child,” she said, though her voice and smile were anything but sincere. “You don’t have enough magoi yet to be useful. Not in death, at least. But if you lived surrounded by all this black rukh, then I can think of many more uses for you alive…”

She held him close to her chest. “I never see siren children anymore. We’re such an old and tired people. Because of that, destiny turned its back on you and left you with me. Isn’t that grand? Instead of dying you could become the black spot I dream of. A human isn’t enough, and oh, I’ve tried.”

Judar watched with wide eyes as Gyokuen cast spell after spell. He couldn’t tell what their purpose was, if they ever had one; she smiled with no indication of if they did what she wanted or not.

Even so, when he cried out for too long she _tsked_ and held him close, rocking him like a mother would. He couldn’t feel her arms from the other side of the water but if he could he was sure they’d be cold.

Judar’s assumption had been that his colony was killed, and soon after Scheherazade came to see what had happened. That wasn’t the case. Gyokuen must have done something to fix the rukh in place so as not to disturb other colonies. She stayed with Judar for weeks, feeding him and protecting him from predators with her strong borg, not out of love. Never out of love. She just loved having a helpless test subject.

His rukh became more agitated as time went on as a result of violent dreams no baby should have been able to conceive, and Gyokuen giggled to comfort him.

“So even a child this small is capable of feeling fear. I have done nothing to harm you, so I think that’s a bit unfair. But maybe you’re smarter than you look.”

His reflection in the water just cried.

“I need your rukh to change,” she said. “This white really isn’t becoming of sirens. So show me: can you despair at this age?”

She saw that he could.

Compromising his breathing, forcing him to go a week without sleeping, heating the water so much that it was uncomfortable to move.

“All of this and you still have hope? Babies sure are useless… Do you even know what hope is?” 

She held his trembling form close. “It’s a special feeling,” she said, voice nearly a whisper. “It’s a gift from God. But your God is fake, so you should never feel hope for him. Do you understand?”

His only response was to cry, but she smiled at the tired irritation for his rukh.

“That’s right. You understand, don’t you? I’ll share it with you. The best feeling in the world.”

Her black rukh flashed a vibrant purple. The stagnation of the surrounding rukh ended, and it crowed in pain towards her. A second flash and everything went black.

“Wonderful… even if all the others failed, this method was a beautiful success.”

She didn’t take the black rukh as she swam away. She let it simmer there, his only company in an empty sea.

Judar let the picture fade.

Since the time he first killed another person, he felt that sirens were capable of the same atrocities as humans. This only confirmed it. And if they could feel pain the same, hurt others the same, and love the same, then there shouldn’t have been any difference at all.

Humans could have black rukh, too. They could torture others and laugh, too. Hakuryuu had shown him that.

He’d hate to hear it, but in many ways Hakuryuu took after his mother.

That knowledge wasn’t enough to keep Judar from letting Hakuryuu touch him to his heart’s content at night and mumble affection into his back. Hakuryuu wasn’t complacent in his mother’s wrongdoings. Rather, he’d done everything in his power to stop her, all while committing the same crimes.

Hakuryuu had done everything he wanted to do, killed everyone he wanted to kill, and this was the result of his hard work. That he could live as emperor and lay with the result of his mother’s experiments nightly.

When she spoke to him as an infant, Judar didn’t understand what she meant in the slightest. He understood her words - alone in the ocean, she spoke in Torran. Each individual word was easy to comprehend, but when she strung them together, it just didn’t mean anything.

From her actions, her goal was to turn his rukh black. Once she succeeded, she left. He could get that.

Why not bring him where she was going, then? If she could stay human in an isolation barrier, she probably could’ve done the same for him. She could’ve brought him anywhere and kept him under her watch. That should’ve been easy for her. But she didn’t.

She used her strange sound magic to see what he was doing, but let him do whatever he wanted. He wasn’t wishing she’d taken even more control of his life than she already had, but it was irritating not understanding anything.

He should tell Hakuryuu about it. Everything, from the beginning. Judar just couldn’t imagine that he would be happy to know that Judar let his mother eavesdrop on his vulnerable moments for so long, knowing who she was in the back of his mind and being stuck in place, unable to face her alone.

How cowardly.

That was the worst part, really. If they’d known each other longer and Hakuryuu had seen that cowardice first hand, he’d hate him for sure. It was hypocritical to force Hakuryuu to overcome his weakness and vulnerabilities while allowing his own to thrive.

But it was fine, right? Hakuryuu was the one who had to be responsible. Not Judar.

Rather than staring at a reflection of the past, shivering with disgust and hate, he had better things to do.

As Hakuryuu spent the next month dealing with governmental bodies outside Rakushou, Judar began practicing alchemic magic on humans. The number of national prisoners had increased rapidly with Hakuryuu’s edict declaring those who killed sirens murderers. War criminals and those who had committed violent crimes were used as research subjects in the underground facility, a fate some researchers thought to be worse than death. When he first came, the researchers had a certain nationalism that justified their experiments now matter how cruel. Nowadays that was fading. A few of them were beginning to pity their subjects.

In Judar’s opinion, it was only fair that the prisoners ended up there. Actions had consequences, and they had to be aware of that. He was always sure to inform them of his true nature before he began.

Their scared faces weren’t new anymore. That didn’t mean he was going to stop bullying them and play nice any time soon.

He used it on their arms first. There was little he could do to them, save cutting them open, to kill. And killing wasn’t his intention. Learning alchemic magic was. Giving them six fingers was easy if he just copied the information in another finger and effectively doubled it. The problem was if he wanted to make a sixth finger from scratch.

Human fingers were much more complicated than starfish limbs. Blood was especially difficult to replicate: he could make a red and warm liquid, but if he put it into the veins of his subjects they quickly grew sick.

It made Judar feel sick too, so they could suck it up if he could.

He could’ve their arms cut off and try to replace them in full, if he felt like it. But they’d probably bleed out as soon as the magic wore off. He didn’t feel like coming back to the smell of that. Flies were already starting to hang around, and their incessant buzzing gave him a headache. He dreaded the thought of what it’d be like if he gave them a whole body to breed in.

Some part of him had expected to find meaning in torturing them with their own grotesque bodies while he experimented with magic, and understand what Gyokuen had been trying to accomplish, but he just felt grossed out.

He’d never find meaning in it. Everything Gyokuen did was meaningless.

Knowing that didn’t give him the closure he needed to tell himself to stop.

So he continued.

“I’m going to move you,” Judar said to the human that now had twenty fingers - ten she should have, and ten more left index fingers protruding from her wrists and arms. It was hard to get the position just right on her hands, so at some point he gave up.

She groaned in response.

“You’re going to get a front seat to my next experiment. You should be honored.”

She shook her head. No more.

“Oh, you can do that now? Before you just groaned and looked dead. What an improvement!”

There were a few things he wanted to try with alchemic magic. For starters, he wanted to use it to turn a human into a siren. He didn’t have any sirens to test on going the other way, so he had to start with humans.

Judar vaguely remembered Hakuryuu telling him in a mock biology lesson that life is full of small pieces. For every leaf, if he carefully took it apart, there was clear films as well as green gunk that was hard to wash from under his fingernails. Humans were like that, too - if he clawed at their skin, it’d get under his fingernails. If he dipped his fingers in their blood, it’d stain.

The texts for alchemic magic had talked about a similar concept on an even smaller scale than what Hakuryuu had explained - the smallest, most crucial pieces of being. Judar didn’t really get it back then. Now he was regretting not taking the time to understand.

He could do it as long as he was following a script with a precedent, though. That was enough for his purposes.

Judar understood siren bodies pretty well for all the magical adjustments he’d cast on his own over the years. Doing the same steps backwards was tricky, but nothing that some effort couldn’t accomplish.

Judar had to consciously decide what color to make their scales and how long to make their tail. His first success was an ugly algae-colored thing.

It was unable to wake up and spent its short new life suffocating on the cold stone floor, so unaccustomed to the way its mouth now worked that it couldn’t even figure out how to scream. Its form returned to human, sticky and covered in the melted form of his magic until even that recombined into a form he could no longer see, back to how it was before he used his magic.

Then he was just a suffocated human. Without a mark on his body, the terrified look frozen into his face looked like a serious overreaction. So much for not attracting any more flies.

It was irritating. Without even a mess to clean up to burn off some steam, Judar kicked the body.

It was dead and couldn’t feel it. Even the dull thud of his foot connecting with its leg was dissatisfying. Judar didn’t normally get so mad about failed experiments, but this was just annoying.

Even an infant could last longer. An infant getting hit with more force for longer. Why had Gyokuen done that? He still couldn’t understand. But he’d been a resilient child.

And this stupid siren on land without any magic to save it was more useless than even that. Dead in seconds! It was unbelievably, unbearably weak.

He stopped his leg in midair, and dropped it without slamming it into the human again.

Without the dull thud of violence, only his fast breathing filled the silence.

To think that Gyokuen was still getting him riled up from the grave. She’d be cackling if she saw him now, he knew it.

Judar turned to look at his audience. She was cowering in the corner of her new cell and refused to meet his eyes. But she’d been watching.

He left an employee with orders to prepare a tank for the next one, and of course to clean up before the flies got too bad.

Unlike Hakuryuu, he had no problem taking a few days for fresh air when he could between the tank being set up and placing a new sleeping siren in.

It was difficult to leave his feelings of disgust in the research facility’s prison, and Hakuryuu was perceptive enough to notice something was bothering him immediately.

He wasn’t the type to go to huge lengths and do something annoyingly extravagant to try to make him feel better. He gave Judar space when he was unresponsive and curled a hand through his hair when he woke up with a start. Judar got moody for no reason at times and just ignoring his bad moods was usually the best way to make them go away but after accidentally waking Hakuryuu up for the third time in one night, he asked.

“What’s wrong?”

“Can’t sleep. That’s all.”

“Judar. You can normally sleep through anything. What’s wrong?”

He groaned. “I’m tired. If you’re gonna bug me, do it tomorrow.”

“Okay…”

Judar had said that with the hopes of Hakuryuu just forgetting. Which was stupid, because Hakuryuu never forgot that kind of thing.

Judar was no more prepared to answer when he asked again in the morning. He never used to ask what was wrong or try to cheer him up, and Judar wasn’t sure how to respond to either.

“I’m tired of not knowing when something bothers you,” Hakuryuu said. “I’d like it if you could start telling me.”

Judar tied Hakuryuu’s arm on. He’d just gotten his new one in after the last one got splintered and bloodied, and it was a slightly different shade from the first. “It’s not a big deal,” he mumbled and fell back onto the bed. “I’m going back to sleep.”

“It’s a big deal if it bothers you.”

Judar put a pillow over his head.

Hakuryuu sighed. “You can be so childish.”

“I’m almost done testing alchemic magic,” Judar said, his voice muffled through the pillow. “I’ll tell you how it went when I finish.”

Content with that answer, Hakuryuu let him be.

Once the tank was in, Judar changed another human immediately. He didn’t mess around by adding more fingers first and didn’t deliberate over the color of the tail too much.

It took two days for the new siren to wake up from within the tank. Judar motioned for it to surface when it opened its eyes.

It did so and coughed when it accidentally pushed its gills too far out of the water. Judar used wind magic to be sure it didn’t suffocate before it calmed down. He’d spent way too much time and effort on this to have to start from square one again. When it finally adjusted, he stepped closer.

“Hey,” Judar said.

It looked at him like it didn’t understand what it was seeing. Maybe it had water in its eyes?

Oh, well.

“I’m talking to you,” Judar said. “Cmon, answer. I can’t do anything worse than I’ve already done, right?”

It tried to reply but choked. Judar rolled his eyes and cast the spell to change its vocal chords.

When it finished coughing, he asked again. “Say something. Or are you not human enough to speak anymore?”

“O-of course I’m human. Please turn me back, Lord Siren.”

“You have scales. You can’t breathe air or walk on land. Can you really still call yourself a human?”

“I am human! I was born as such!”

“Yeah, but…”

“I’m not a monster,” it choked out. “Please, at least allow me to die human.”

“Can you see the rukh?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about… please…”

“…You’ll turn back when you die either way.”

Judar left the facility with instructions to regularly feed the creature in the tank. It had been an elderly human. If it were truly a siren despite its mind that remembered it as human, it would live as long as it was fed.

It died in less than a week.

“How did it die?” Judar asked his front row prisoner.

She looked up with eyes filled with hatred. “ _He_ died because of you. How hypocritical of you to imprison us for killing your kind, then turn around and kill ours!”

Judar smiled at her energy. Here he’d thought torture was bad for the soul. He never expected it to brighten her up. “I’m not the one that’s sending out the orders to bring you guys here. If it were me, you’d have as good of a shot at my head as I have at yours. But you know, that’s the thing about the human world… everyone’s gotta listen to what the emperor says. That’s just the way it is.”

“That’s just the way it is, is it?”

“Yeah.”

She slammed her palms to the cold stone floor. It had to hurt, but no pain reached her face through her anger. “You’re the cause of this! You and the shitty new emperor! It’s not just the way it is, you made it like this!”

Judar kneeled by her cell, close enough for her to reach. She scrambled towards him, reaching out to claw the smile off his face.

Unlucky for her, it only made it to his borg.

“Nice try,” he said. “But you’re gonna have to try a lot harder than that if you want things to change.”

She slammed her hands back into the ground. It was dark enough that it was easy to see.

Her rukh, bit by bit, losing the light that trusted her destiny to lead her to a warm place.

It was the same thing Gyokuen had tried so hard to do to him, and the same thing he’d inadvertently done to Hakuryuu. Pushed far enough into a corner, people became disgusted with the path of their lives. Then all they could do was lash out to continue living. Because without hope, the only way to live was with hate.

He didn’t regret forcing her into that corner. He was glad to finally understand exactly what it was that he and Hakuryuu had in common.

It wasn’t something he hated. It was something he cherished.

Finally content with his results, Judar told Hakuryuu about his experiments. Hakuryuu didn’t judge him for it, just as he’d known that he wouldn’t. He’d performed the same kinds of gross experimentation already. By doing it himself, it was just another way they’d grown similar.

Gyokuen was dead, so the fact that she had black rukh didn’t matter anymore. It was better if Hakuryuu thought of it as something they shared, too, proof of the poor circumstances they’d overcome.

Hakuryuu wasn’t very impressed, but didn’t comment. Maybe he was worried about ruining Judar’s mood.

“I also made a pretty perfect siren from a human,” Judar said. “Still thought it was a human though.”

“What were you expecting?” Hakuryuu asked.

“Exactly that. Maybe releasing it into the sea would be fun. The magic would wear off sooner or later, though. Then it’d be shark food.”

“Are you going to use that magic on yourself?”

“Maybe. It’s probably what Gyokuen was using so I’m sure it’s more efficient than what I’m doing now. Might take me awhile to wake up after using it, though.”

“How long?”

“It took the last one two days. But I know siren bodies pretty well. So doing it the other way around might be more efficient.”

Hakuryuu frowned. “So it’d be days? It sounds dangerous. I’d rather you just continue how you’re doing it now. If you get low on magoi, stop using some of your spells.”

“Does that mean you’re gonna respond to Torran now?”

“I respond to it every morning.”

“And you’d be fine without my human body?”

“I like it, but it’s more important that you don’t use too much magoi. Besides, I can’t imagine that you’d be pleased to live in the garden pond as it recovered.”

…It felt a little like he was being scolded. Even if he cut his lifespan short by using too much magoi, it’d still be way longer than what Hakuryuu would ever make it to. But if he wanted to hear Judar say that he wouldn’t be too reckless for his own peace of mind, he’d say it.

For now he was fine. He didn’t need to save magoi by getting rid of anything but stopped altering his voice while he slept.

His body could stay a little longer.

It was really enjoyable, after all. Feeling wanted was just as good of a feeling as being taken, so Judar was happy to oblige. Even when Hakuryuu embarrassed him by calling him his real name in the middle.

He was such a brat when he wanted to be.

\---

A letter arrived at the tail end of the rainy season. When Hakuryuu unraveled it a second paper fell out. Hakuryuu picked it up and glanced at the top. “This one’s for you.”

“Huh? Really?”

“Yes. It’s addressed to you,” Hakuryuu said and handed it over without reading through.

Judar raised an eyebrow. His eyes flicked to the bottom of the letter where Titus’s name was signed in clean script, followed by Marga’s messy signature. “From Titus.”

“This one is informing me of the results of the election in Reim along with an invention to the coronation of the new emperor,” Hakuryuu said. “I suppose Titus must have taken the opportunity to get a letter to you.”

“Seems so,” Judar said. He began to read.

_Judar,_

_I’ve always wanted to write a letter! Ignatius said I could send one to you along with the invitation to his coronation, so that’s what I’m doing. Isn’t my handwriting nice? I’ve been working on improving my penmanship since reading Scheherazade’s journals. I expect that I have you beat on this one._

_Anyway, I have good news. The Carmen clan of Heliohapt has proven themselves to be very competent healers. They’ve even enjoyed life in Reim, and have adjusted very well. Marga is well enough to spend time with kids her age and I couldn’t be happier. She’s always talking about her friends now, and works hard to finish studying early every day just so that she can go visit them. They run around and play together all the time, and her lungs don’t bother her too much at all. She can even outrun me now!_

_I’m looking forward to seeing you at Ignatius’s coronation. I was worried when I heard the rumors about you being a siren, but I knew Emperor Hakuryuu would do something about it. He’s really very fond of you, you know. I heard more about your accomplishments from him while you were here than from you, and that’s saying something! He’d never let anything happen to you. I’m a bit jealous._

_Even so, I’m very pleased with Kou’s new laws. I hope that Reim will follow in your country’s footsteps in the near future._

_Love,  
Titus and Marga_

“…What did you say about me?” Judar asked.

“Hm? What do you mean?”

“Titus says you didn’t shut up about me the whole time you were there,” Judar said. “So what’d you say?”

Hakuryuu’s face reddened. “Th, that’s not important. It says the coronation is—”

“Don’t try to change the subject! I wanna hear!”

“Um… I really didn’t say much. Titus and I didn’t even spend that much time together. Mostly just while we were reading.”

“Go on.”

“…Titus said that Scheherazade was the best magician there was, so naturally I mentioned that you could do more than her.”

“That’d piss Titus off.”

“It did. But I wasn’t wrong.”

Judar smiled. It felt good to have Hakuryuu’s complete confidence.

“Anyway,” Hakuryuu said, trying once again to change the subject, “Was that all?”

“Nah. Titus says Marga got some new doctors that’re working well. I wanted to know if they’re sirens or not but it doesn’t say. Probably didn’t want word to get out.”

“Yes, written proof would be the equivalent of a bounty letter.”

“Yup. Titus has a strong borg, but those healers probably don’t. I bet most of their credibility as humans comes from having all of them on the shore, since usually sirens come up alone. Wonder why. Bad waters?”

Hakuryuu frowned. “It seems like sirens can’t win. Not in the sea and not on land.”

“Don’t go feeling sorry for us. It’s not like that. We’re way tougher than we look.”

“I know _you_ are. But not everyone is.”

“But they wanted to come to land anyway. They made their own choices, so don’t pity them either.”

“I guess you’re right,” Hakuryuu said. He sighed. “I should prepare the palace for my absence while we’re at the new emperor’s enthronement. They’ll do better the sooner I tell them in advance.”

“Yeah,” Judar said.

Sinbad would probably be there. That was what Hakuryuu had to prepare for. He wondered if they’d get in another fight.

Probably. Judar would be a little disappointed if they didn’t.

In the weeks leading up to the coronation, Hakuryuu tried to put everything within the country in order. It was his opinion that they shouldn’t leave for a second unless the capital was capable of self defense, since they’d gotten on Sinbad’s bad side, and the lackluster state of their army left much to be desired.

Many soldiers weren’t too happy to follow Hakuryuu after having plants shoved in their brains for a couple months. Many more had lasting personality damage and were uncooperative, forgetting simple things like the fact that they shouldn’t yell at their emperor and supreme commander just because they were mad at him.

Hakuryuu already knew that he was at fault for the situation so Judar didn’t bother pointing it out to him. He was working hard to get them to cooperate by their own free will just as he had worked hard to make them submit so long ago. 

It just wasn’t working.

“I can just put new plants in,” Judar said. “The guys who already had them before aren’t very useful anymore, so might as well put the back.”

Hakuryuu didn’t respond. Not then. A few days later he decided to take Judar up on that offer, though.

“I already compensated their families for the damage, so if possible, I’d like you to make it more subtle this time,” Hakuryuu said. “Can you do that?”

“That’s easy,” Judar said. “They’ll never notice. As long as you think up an excuse to keep them here while the cut heals, I mean. They’d probably catch on if we sent them home with big holes in their heads.”

“It’s not a problem.”

It took another couple weeks to fix most of their old army up with enhancements the same as they’d been. Hakuryuu watched him in a daze when he had the time.

“What’s up?” Judar asked.

Hakuryuu blinked and shook his head. “It’s nothing.”

“They’re way stronger like this,” Judar said. “I bet they could each kill a dozen Alliance soldiers without blinking.”

“Yeah… you’re right.”

They were even easier to control when Judar held them by the strings with his magic.

Using his magic to force them to cooperate was a huge burden on his magoi. If he didn’t need to use them, he preferred not to - they had other soldiers, so using these guys could be pretty wasteful. But at least now they were possible to use.

He hadn’t offered to redo their plants because he actually thought they’d start a war during a banquet, of course. It was more of a way of getting Hakuryuu to throw away his remaining hesitation.

Sinbad wouldn’t pick a fight in front of thousands of people, so really, they’d only end up fighting if they were the ones who picked it.

Which was always a possibility. It was difficult in the heat of a moment to know which fights were worth picking and which weren’t.

And more than if it was worth it or not, Judar wanted it to happen.

Hakuryuu prepared for the possibility of war with the Seven Seas Alliance despite the fact that they’d have to declare that war for it to happen, due to the Alliance’s policy of non-invasion. He didn’t send out army drafts or anything major, but he did ensure that the all military supplies were well stocked and tried to fix the still broken morale of much of Kouen’s old army.

That proved to be just as difficult of a task as fixing the moral of the old Eastern Army.

Many were tired of fighting and obeyed Hakuryuu for that reason alone. Others were just as tired of fighting, but seemed to think that under Hakuryuu they’d end up at war again, this time one they didn’t believe in. Those ones were high risk - in other words, unreliable. Likely to desert.

Fighting their own countrymen had been a serious blow to their resolves that hadn’t fully recovered in the year since the war. There were more deserters by the day, and though it’d started out as a non-significant amount, the rate at which men left never seemed to slow.

“As always, deserters are war criminals of the first degree and should be dealt with accordingly: with death or lifelong imprisonment,” Hakuryuu said once the plants’ entry holes were healed, addressing Rakushou’s full defensive army.

The air went cold. He’d just recited a law. Nothing more, nothing less. It wasn’t a good sign.

But if deserting was such a heinous war crime, they’d need a new way to classify all of what Hakuryuu had done for the sake of fighting.

“Maybe we should’ve done something about this sooner,” Judar said once they were out of the army’s sight.

“I thought I had it taken care of. I appointed a general to see to their retraining, but I see now that he was perfectly useless.”

“Probably wishes you were Kouen,” Judar said. “Hope you jailed him for treason.”

“I have someone looking into it. But maybe I should do that myself too, since clearly no one else is capable.”

“You get a lot of useless people in power. You’d think there would be someone better for their jobs.”

“The problem isn’t their uncooperativeness,” Hakuryuu said. “They all have spotless records of perfect obedience. It’s that they don’t want to serve _me._ Very few people do…” 

“Not like they have a choice,” Judar said, and smiled.

Hakuryuu smiled back.


	29. Chapter 29

Ignatius Alexius’s coronation was a long and drawn out process. Reim was an old country that’d perfected the art of unnecessary speeches centuries ago. Each senator had to individually congratulate the new emperor in the most verbose way possible to get on his good side early, and that was before they even brought the food out.

Hakuryuu’s coronation had been much better. It was just as full of strange human rituals but at least it didn’t last hours in the blazing summer heat.

The only real entertainment was the appearance of the Seven Sea Alliance’s leaders. It had been too far for many of them to attend Hakuryuu’s coronation, especially considering the poor terms their countries had been on thanks to Kouen, so Sinbad had gone alone to represent the entire Seven Seas Alliance. That wasn’t the case at Ignatius’s coronation.

The rulers of Imuchakk, Sasan, Aktia, Musta’sim, Artemyra, Heliohapt, and Parthevia all came. To the best of Judar’s knowledge, that was about all of them. They didn’t speak much between themselves and didn’t come off as particularly tight-knit, but they didn’t move far from Sinbad’s side, either.

Sinbad himself was the same as he’d been months ago. The heat of Reim’s summer didn’t bother him, even with so many people flocking around him. Though it was Ignatius’s ceremony, from where Judar was standing, Sinbad commanded more popularity and respect among the other leaders of the world. He was a suitable opponent, that was for sure.

Hakuryuu had said that Sinbad worked hard to get where he was, but Judar wondered about that. It seemed that an awful lot of his accomplishments came down to the fact that he was charismatic. People couldn’t ignore him. That included the senator’s wives as their husbands’ backs were turned while they gave speeches to the new emperor.

The crowd clapped politely when each speech finished and cheered when the banquet began.

“Finally,” Judar said. “I’m starving. How long was that, anyway?”

Hakuryuu shrugged. He looked just as tired of the heat. Judar cooled a cup of water with his staff and handed it to him.

“You shouldn’t use magic here,” Hakuryuu complained but drank it anyway.

“Titus is probably around here somewhere, and will do the exact same thing after being out there in the sun for so long. So they can’t yell at me for doing it.”

“…It’s just like you to use that kind of reasoning,” Hakuryuu said.

“Did you see everyone over there by Sinbad?” Judar asked. “He’s more popular than the new emperor. And we’re in _Reim_.”

Hakuryuu nodded and motioned to the other end of the hall. “He’s speaking with Emperor Alexius now.”

Judar followed Hakuryuu’s gaze. “Oh, you’re right. Probably trying to get on his good side before we can.”

He froze. A dark speck flitted through the air around the kings. He couldn’t tell who it was coming from with all the people, but he was sure he’d seen it.

Black rukh.

“Judar?”

Judar turned to Hakuryuu. His own dark rukh, honest as ever, was chirping in concern. “I’m gonna go over there,” he said. “Wanna come?”

Hakuryuu frowned but nodded.

Sinbad greeted them as they approached. “Good day, Emperor Hakuryuu.”

“Good day,” Hakuryuu responded, somewhat flatly. “Congratulations to you, Emperor Alexius. I hope the bond between our countries will continue to prosper.”

Ignatius thanked him. He sounded far too tired to still be standing.

Judar watched the rukh, trying to spot another fleck of black. No luck so far. He pushed Hakuryuu’s back lightly, urging him to make something else up to talk about.

Thinking of what to talk about wasn’t Hakuryuu’s strong point. Thankfully Sinbad picked up the slack instead.

“Emperor Alexius and I were just talking about recent senate elections. It’s a system much like the Seven Seas Alliance’s board of members.”

“Is that so,” Hakuryuu said.

“Yes. I feel the days of absolute monarchies may be coming to an end.”

Hakuryuu frowned. “What exactly are you trying to say?”

“King Sinbad,” Ignatius said, “I believe every country has its own way of doing things. The Kou Empire is no exception.” He cleared his throat. “Today is a day of celebration. Let’s feast rather than debate.”

“Yes,” Sinbad said. “I apologize for my tactlessness, Emperor. The heat must have gotten to me.” He didn’t sound sorry at all. But that wasn’t what caught Judar’s attention. It was something right off Sinbad’s shoulder.

Judar’s eyes widened when he saw it. He tugged at Hakuryuu’s sleeve. “You like the olives here, right? Let’s get some.”

Hakuryuu nodded, thanked Ignatius once more for the banquet, and followed Judar back to the tables.

Never one to beat around the bush, Judar said it plainly. “Sinbad has some black rukh.”

“…Are you sure?”

“I saw it! When the new emperor told him off.”

Hakuryuu glanced around the hall to be sure no one was listening in. “The only people who have it are you, me, and Sinbad, correct?”

“…”

“Judar?”

“Gyokuen had it, too. And I was able to force someone to have it while I was using alchemic magic.” 

“I… what?”

“Probably should’ve mentioned that sooner, huh…” 

Hakuryuu sighed. “I wish you’d at least picked a better time to say it. This isn’t exactly a good place to talk.”

Judar watched Sinbad from across the room. His rukh flickered black several more times throughout the night. It wasn’t often, but if he was looking for it, it wasn’t difficult to find.

He wanted to ask. He remembered the night they spent talking in Rakushou. Remembered thinking that he could like Sinbad. They weren’t on good terms now, but they must have something in common if they shared the same rukh.

That was a line of thought that Sinbad could easily use against him. It was fine, though. Judar was confidant there was nothing Sinbad could give him that Hakuryuu hadn’t already.

Judar slipped away when Hakuryuu was taken into a conversation with some of Reim’s senators. Sinbad wasn’t difficult to find - he was wherever the most people were.

“Hey,” he said. “Come talk to me.”

Sinbad understood that to mean both “alone” and “if you don’t come I’ll make a scene” and nodded.

Sinbad apologized to his company, a few young women who didn’t mind sharing Sinbad between themselves, and led Judar to a balcony overlooking the city of Remano.

“You’re the last person I expected to call me away,” Sinbad said. It went unspoken between them that a fight could result in either of their deaths, so it was just as Judar said: a talk.

“What’s up with your rukh?” Judar asked. Sinbad was a human, sure, but Sindria’s magician must have noticed it and told him that some of it was black.

Sinbad kept a neutral expression. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Hey. Playing dumb doesn’t work against a great magician.”

Sinbad leaned over the balcony, taking a deep breath of the night air. In that moment he seemed very different from the man who had insulted Hakuryuu no longer than half an hour ago. “I was told that your rukh is no different. There’s no need to sound so accusing.”

“What’s up with that answer? The High King of the Seven Seas gets offended pretty easy, huh?”

“Emperor Hakuryuu’s rukh is the same as well.”

“I asked about yours. Don’t you know what it means?”

Sinbad laughed and relaxed. “Of course not. None of us know what it means. But it must mean something.” He turned to meet Judar’s eyes. “Isn’t it strange? All rukh starts as white but sometimes it turns to black. I’d love to know who decides to change it.”

Judar frowned.

“Black rukh can’t return to the flow,” Sinbad said. “I have met many sirens in my life by chance. I asked every one of them if they’d seen black rukh and if they knew if it could rejoin the flow. Many had never seen it. Those who did confirmed my fears. Once it becomes black, something changes. It can never return to create new life again. It lost something along the way - not only its brightness, but that basic qualification to live again. And I find that very sad.”

“Uh… ”

“…That’s fine. You don’t have to understand it. You’ll live so long that it won’t matter either way. But Emperor Hakuryuu might find it more troubling. Even if he wants a second chance or deserves one, he won’t get it.”

Judar didn’t know what to say to that.

“I’ve learned that war creates black rukh,” Sinbad said. “It keeps people from their second chances. I want to create a world without it. One where everyone can live without suffering, with smiles on their faces and that bright spark in their rukh. Wouldn’t it be great?”

“People suffer for way more than just war,” Judar said. “Just ending fighting won’t make everyone’s rukh white.”

“I know. I’ll figure out how to save them, too,” Sinbad said. He sighed. “I think this thing called black rukh shouldn’t exist. I think it’s born out of suffering. But that’s nothing but my theory.”

Sinbad stretched and turned back towards the banquet. “That room is filled with white rukh, isn’t it?”

“It’s everywhere. Bright enough that it’s almost hard to see everyone’s faces.”

“Yamraiha said that Emperor Hakuryuu’s coronation wasn’t,” Sinbad said. “I thought at the time that it was because you were spreading nothing but suffering to your people. Since then, Emperor Hakuryuu has done his best to make everyone happy within the country he swore to protect, from sirens to humans. Though I doubt anything will come of it.”

“Don’t underestimate him.”

Sinbad shrugged. “I’m returning to the banquet.”

“…See you.”

“Yeah.”

Hakuryuu was alone when Judar found him again. “Where were you?”

“Talking to Sinbad,” Judar said. He picked up a skewered fish to eat as they spoke.

“What did you talk about?”

Judar recounted what Sinbad said to Hakuryuu, leaving out the part about their inability to return to the great flow - it would do more harm than good - and was met with a frown.

“So he thinks it’s because of suffering.”

“Guess so. He thinks it should be erased. But I don’t think it’s a bad thing.”

“Why?”

“It means we’ve got the will to fight,” he said. “Better than letting things happen as they come.”

Hakuryuu looked at him, mouth open but no response coming out. His rukh was confused at the concept, but tentatively agreed. If he had no opinion, his best bet was to agree with Judar’s.

Hakuryuu had only known what rukh was for a short amount of time and didn’t understand things like the great flow because Judar never explained them. Even if what Sinbad said was true, if Hakuryuu’s short life would end in nothingness, he was none the wiser.

If his rukh changed back into what it had been, they’d lose their closest link. So it was better this way. Judar liked it best when they were the same. It meant they had a reason to trust each other over anyone else. If Sinbad was going to try to break it and change Hakuryuu’s rukh back, he’d fight it for sure.

“I don’t think Sinbad likes you much,” Judar said. “Always trying to undermine your ability like he thinks you’re some kind of idiot.”

“I can’t hold that against him.”

Judar couldn’t either. 

“He was wondering who decided the path of rukh, correct? If someone really does decide if rukh should be black or white, that would make them a god in their own right,” Hakuryuu said.

“Maybe. Come to think of it, Gyokuen said something about that too. But I’ve never heard of any religious sirens before.”

“Are you sure that she was truly a siren? The isolation barrier didn’t do what it did to you.”

“Of course she was. Not much else she could’ve been. I already told you this.”

“Still…” Hakuryuu closed his eyes in thought. He’d be thinking about it the rest of the night, that was for sure.

Hakuryuu’s theory did make sense. But what Gyokuen meant didn’t matter anymore. She was dead. He’d made sure of that.

But if her rukh wasn’t going to return to the flow anyway, blowing it up might not have been the suicidal move he’d thought it to be in the first place.

He was brought out of his thoughts by a familiar voice. Titus was at his side in seconds.

“Judar! I’m glad you came. It’s been months since we last saw each other. Oh, I see you got your ears pierced in that time. It’s quite fashionable,” Titus said and flicked the dangling gold before Judar could step away. “And hello to you too, Emperor Hakuryuu.”

Marga waved from Titus’s side. She looked much healthier. Judar pushed Titus away, suddenly feeling very tired.

“Aren’t you glad Ignatius won the election? Well, not that there was much competition. Nerva wouldn’t make a very good emperor.”

“Who’s Nevra?”

“It’s Nerva, not Nevra,” Titus corrected. “He’s the previous emperor’s son. Oh, we have so much to talk about! Not much can fit in letters, you see. Did you know that Muu is a senator now?”

“I heard about it just earlier,” Hakuryuu said. “He’s not very popular.”

Titus laughed. “I know! Everyone hates us because we’re trying to end slavery. And with Ignatius as the emperor, I’m sure we can do it.”

“Copycat,” Judar said. “Hakuryuu did it first.”

“We’ve been trying just as long as you. I’d be happy if the rest of the world followed.”

Judar shrugged. Personally, he agreed with Hakuryuu: it was better that they had some moral high ground to try to look down on Sinbad with than if the slaves in Heliohapt and other Seven Seas Alliance countries were freed.

Seeing Judar’s disinterest, Hakuryuu shot Judar an annoyed look and spoke. “I also hope they follow… Slavery is an inhumane thing.”

Right, right. Keeping up appearances. Pointless, but apparently important. Even if he thought it was stupid, if Hakuryuu said he should shut up then he would.

“Yes!” Titus said, happy that Hakuryuu agreed. “If possible, I’d like to use my power to end slavery, feed those who can’t afford to eat, and prevent wars. Maybe that’s a bit ambitious for one person, but I think we should all do our best with our individual strengths. Right, Judar?”

“I’m good at fighting, so I’m not interested in world peace or anything.”

Titus blinked. “I get what you mean, however…well, there’s all the time in the world to build new skills, isn’t there?”

“Yeah!” Marga said. “You can work hard too and be a doctor like me!”

Hakuryuu and Titus laughed.

“H-hey! I’d be great at it!”

“In a millenia maybe,” Titus said. “Oh, why don’t you two have dessert with me? Marga and I were about to leave. Long banquets get so stuffy, you see, and we have an equally capable chef back at the villa. Though Muu may be a bit longer here, being a senator now and all.”

Judar and Hakuryuu exchanged a glance, then Hakuryu accepted.

With war as big of a possibility as it was, continuing to cultivate relationships in Reim was important.

More than that, Judar was curious about Marga’s healers. Siren colonies were small places, and he was always curious if their traditions were only their colony’s or belonged to the whole sea.

Titus’s place wasn’t far from the capitol building and it didn’t take long for Marga and Titus to run off to find someone to man the kitchen and prepare dessert while they chatted.

Titus sat across from Hakuryuu and smiled. “So, Emperor Hakuryuu! Please tell me all about your new laws. I would like to hear how the ban on siren killing has worked.”

“…It’s going well,” Hakuryuu said. “Though persecution hasn’t stopped. It’s mostly just been moved underground.”

“That’s too bad,” Titus said. “But I’m sure even that will stop with effort. It’s like the period of underground slavery that former slave-owning countries go through.”

“Yes,” Hakuryuu agreed.

“Any attempts on your life?” Titus asked Judar.

Judar raised an eyebrow and pointed to the chef. Titus waved his concern away.

“That’s Sphintus, one of the Carmen sirens from Heliohapt.”

“Seriously!?”

“I was surprised too!” Titus said. “But I suppose with the whole family on land, one must cut their hair as to not raise suspicion.”

“You should try it, Little Lord,” Sphintus called over the sizzling dessert. “I’m sure you could even buy another house if you sold all that hair.”

“That’s an idea!” Titus said. “Maybe I’ll do that when Marga’s old enough for her own place.”

When Sphintus plated the dessert - a pastry layered with nuts and honey that he claimed to be a special of the Heliohapt - he bowed politely to Hakuryuu then whispered something to Titus.

“Hm? Oh, yes. That’s right,” Titus said, not bothering to whisper the response back. “You have hope yet for a noble human lady to take you in.”

Sphintus jumped. “Not so loud!”

“It’s fine,” Titus said. “I’m sure they don’t mind. Right, Judar?”

“Why stop at noble ladies? I’m sure there’s a lonely queen out there in need of some healing magic.”

Titus laughed as Sphintus sputtered.

“…Are you famous now?” Hakuryuu asked, amused.

“Sounds like it. See, you’re such a catch it’s international siren gossip.”

Hakuryuu rolled his eyes. “It’s my title they’re talking about, not me.”

“And who worked his ass off for that title, huh?”

“Really though, Emperor Hakuryuu,” Titus said, “I’m sure all sorts of sirens are eyeing the Kou Empire now as a place they might be able to be themselves. Everyone in Sphintus’s family thought it was wonderful, too - a place where we can live alongside humans honestly.”

“Y-yes! Thank you, sir!” Sphintus said and bowed once again.

Hakuryuu’s smile easily reached his rukh. Judar’s own rukh reacted favorably in turn, and Titus and Sphintus both stared obviously. It was fun having something they were jealous of, even if there was no way they actually understood how things were between them.

Sphintus’s cooking wasn’t half bad, but that meant it was good enough for Hakuryuu to get competitive over.

When Titus urged them to stay and play some human games the Carmens brought from Heliohapt, Judar was curious enough to stay. He was still kinda sour about last time he was in Reim, but when was he ever one to turn down a challenge?

Hakuryuu was terrible at it and it took Judar forever to learn the rules and he kept playing wrong and failing to cheat well enough to win, and Titus kept trying to make up new rules and confusing everyone more.

Being the only one who knew how to play, Sphintus easily won nearly every round.

“Come on, Hakuryuu. You’re a human. You’ve got the advantage here,” Judar grumbled.

“That’s not how it works! We don’t have this game in Kou.”

Judar groaned in frustration when Sphintus won again. “Why’re you so good at it?”

“I’ve spent ages in Heliohapt.”

“How many ages?”

Sphintus considered it for a moment. “Hundred and fifty years or so.”

“He’s in his three hundreds,” Titus said. “His family keeps badgering him to return to their colony to find a partner. Tragic, really, since he prefers humans—”

“Titus!”

“Fine, fine. Rich human ladies.”

“That makes it sound even worse!”

While Titus and Sphintus argued it was easy to cheat just enough to pull out his first victory of the night. Hakuryuu rolled his eyes but didn’t miss the opportunity to gloat about placing in second, better than Sphintus by two places.

“Okay, now we can stop playing,” Judar said. “I’m the best now, so we’re done.”

“That’s admitting foul play if I ever heard it,” Titus said. “Really, Sphintus, he’s always been like this.”

“You’re a pretty sore loser yourself, Little Lord. Cheating is only one step away in stubbornness from you.”

“Oh, hush. You just admit defeat too easily.”

It was fun. Judar was too tired to transfer all the way to Balbadd after hours of games, and instead decided to just leave in the morning.

“Wonderful!” Titus said. “This time I’ll show you our full hospitality, there’s no way around it! Come, Sphintus, let’s make them a room. Judar, you too.”

“Hey, what happened to hospitality!?”

“Well, you’re family. Let’s not keep Emperor Hakuryuu waiting,” Titus said, rukh flickering with a growing anxiety.

“…Fine, whatever. But we’re not family.” Judar got up, but only because it was obvious Titus was struggling to find an excuse to talk without Hakuryuu present, and he was getting curious what was too private for Hakuryuu to hear.

They had to know he’d go back and tell Hakuryuu whatever they said anyway.

Once in an old room, after getting linens to spread with Sphintus, Titus spoke. “So?”

“So what?”

“So I heard you two were on rough ground with the Seven Seas Alliance.”

“Oh. You could’ve said that in front of Hakuryuu, you know.”

“Yes, but then I wouldn’t hear what you had to say about it. You’re rather harder to talk to seriously when he’s around.”

“I think Sinbad’s an ass,” Judar said. “Fighting him will be fun. I want to see him lose.”

Sphintus’s rukh became nervous. Titus pat his shoulder to show it was fine. “But will he lose? When you look at it from the outside, anyone would say you’re in a bad spot.”

“We’ve been in bad spots before. You know humans. They’re really not that strong. Sinbad’s no different.”

“If you say so,” Titus said. “Well, your room’s ready.”

“Shouldn’t we make another?” Sphintus asked.

“Don’t bother,” Judar said. He jumped on the freshly made bed, messing it up. “I’ve got a fancy human body now, you know.”

“I figured you would. You aren’t very patient.” Seeing as the bed was already messed up, Titus jumped on it beside him. “I’ve never done that before.”

“The bed’ll break sooner if you jump on it too much,” Sphintus said. “Makes a big mess, too, with cotton flying everywhere.”

“Oh. Well, I’ll be prepared for it when it happens, then,” Titus said, jumped on it again, then hopped back off. “Judar, you’ll have to show me your new body sometime. I’m curious how it looks.”

“Gonna go ask Hakuryuu about Sinbad for the real answer now?”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Titus said. “But I will tell him your room’s ready. Sleep well, alright?”

“Yeah, sure,” Judar said. He watched Titus and Sphintus go, struck once again with the feeling that Titus was holding something back. Maybe he shouldn’t have been so forthcoming with information.

Oh well.

He slept easy and after having a quick breakfast in town with Hakuryuu left for Balbadd.

After staying up late playing games the night before it was easy to spend the whole day lazing around. It wasn’t so easy for Hakuryuu, though, who insisted on checking the markets and piers to be sure his officials were reporting the decline in scale sales accurately.

Judar waved him away. He had no desire to go trekking around in the fog working.

Instead he took walk around the palace district. The air was cool in a way that felt like a storm had just passed. Some streets were nearly covered in water, but Balbadd’s people walked around the puddles, used to it.

Judar stepped through them, splashing the people around him and ignoring the dirty looks it got him. They didn’t look like that at kids who did the same, so what was the problem?

Despite not liking to be splashed, the people of Balbadd were less nervous around him than last time despite the fact that he was obviously from Kou. After all, without Kouen’s laws, he was on the same ground as they were. There were a few less slaves, too, since the system was being phased out. And less laborers since many traders were sent to other areas of the empire for construction purposes.

Everyone was well-fed for how many boats they had for fishing now. Judar didn’t think they had much left to complain about.

“Judar… Is that you?”

“Hm?”

“It is!” Kougyoku hurried over, a huge smile covering her face. A woman Judar had never met was at her side. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you.”

Judar’s eyes slid from Kougyoku’s face, which wasn’t covered in her usual ten layers of makeup, down to her arms. “Uh.”

“…This is my son,” Kougyoku said. “The late king of Balbadd’s child. Cute, isn’t he?”

The woman beside her had a kid, too, one that was slightly older and probably capable of running through the puddles as Judar had just done. “…Congrats, I guess?”

“Thank you,” Kougyoku said. “Well, I don’t expect you’re the type to have an interest in talking about children. But even though my husband isn’t… here anymore… our child is healthy. Our marriage wasn’t for nothing.”

“Guess you’re not ever gonna be a general like that.”

“…It’s fine. I’m happy with how things are now. And who knows? If my country should need me a few years out, I would still help if at all possible.”

Kougyoku’s friend introduced herself as Zaynab. “Kougyoku told me about you,” she said. “Good to finally meet you.”

“Is it okay for you to be here?” Kougyoku asked.

Judar frowned. He didn’t like everyone more or less knowing he was a siren if they were going to treat him like he couldn’t take care of himself. “Obviously. Who do you think I am? I can go wherever I want.”

“S-sorry. Is Hakuryuu here, too?”

“Yeah. Had some work to do, though. As usual.”

“Oh,” Kougyoku said. “Of course. One must work hard to rule.”

“Aren’t you in charge here? Bet you don’t work half as much as he does.”

“He always was serious, wasn’t he?” Kougyoku said. Her expression faltered.

She never knew Kouen as well as Kouha or Koumei, but she’d always liked him.

Actually, Judar was surprised she wasn’t angrier at Hakuryuu for killing him.

“It’s the emperor you’re talking about, right?” Kougyoku’s friend asked.

“Yeah,” Judar said. “The great and respectable emperor, to you.”

“And here I was going to say my husband prefers him to Kouen.”

“Well, someone’s gotta,” Judar said.

“Tell him, alright?”

As nice as her sentiment was, by the decaying look Balbadd’s streets easily fell back into, not everyone felt that way. “Tell him yourself,” Judar complained. “Do I look like a messenger?”

“Well, you don’t look like an official!” Zainab said. “You don’t have the same big hat they all wear.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not an official! I’m the only magician so I get to decide how I dress.”

She rolled her eyes and dug in her pocket to pull out a cigar. “We were part of the Fog Trope. The ones always fighting the old king around here. Me, I prefered Kouen, but lots of them prefer the new emperor too. ‘Cause he lets Balbadd be itself. Well, as much of itself as we _can_ be with your lot guarding every corner.”

“The hell do you still Kouen for? He lost. He’s dead.”

Zainab raised an eyebrow at Kougyoku for some confirmation that this what what she was supposed to be expecting. 

Kougyoku laughed nervously. “N-now, now.” Her kid saved her from needing to think of what to say by waking up, his bleary eyes studying the surroundings without a sound.

“Calm, isn’t he? Really takes after the boss,” Zainab said. “Zassan would be screaming if it were him.”

Kougyoku giggled. “Kids are so strange.”

Kougyoku and her friend continued to chat about children. Bored, he tried to slip away.

“Judar, wait!”

He bit back a sigh.

“I, um, wanted to ask about the Seven Seas Alliance. We aren’t—er, Kou isn’t… planning on anything?”

“Don’t you talk to Hakuryuu at all?”

“By letter on occasion, yes. But… not recently. I suppose he’s been busy.”

Judar shrugged. “He was probably waiting until he was here in person. Maybe he’s even waiting in the palace now for you.”

Kougyoku gasped. “I’d better return. Sometimes Ka Koubun’s notes on meetings aren’t very good. But it was very nice seeing you again. Being here can be… lonely, I suppose.”

He must’ve been making a face because Kougyoku laughed.

“Well, I’ll be in the palace. Why don’t you join me for dinner?”

“Eat with you? Hey, you know eating with old hags gives you wrinkles, right?”

Kougyoku huffed in annoyance. “How could I forget, you’re Judar. It’s impossible to get a straight answer out of you!”

She left with her friend towards the palace. Judar wondered idly if she’d given her friends official positions.

He wouldn’t be surprised. She was very different from Hakuryuu, and though he’d never do that, it was definitely something Kougyoku would do. In fact, right about now, he’d bet anything that Ka Koubun was bragging about his promotions to some uncaring palace guard.

He left to find Hakuryuu in the palace when he got hungry. He looked tired but not unhappy.

“There’s been a lot of progress in the area,” Hakuryuu said. “Even when I payed locals to ask to see scales and offered to pay in advance to buy one, not one jeweler offered to show them. So it appears that the law is doing its job well.”

“You could’ve done that yourself.”

“Do you honestly think they don’t have an idea of what I look like here by now? Maybe not everyone, but the potential is always there. Especially among criminals.”

“Oh, right. You sure think ahead,” Judar said. “By the way, I saw Kougyoku. She wants to know what’s going on with the Seven Seas Alliance.”

“She would, wouldn’t she,” Hakuryuu said and sighed. “She asked me after I returned from Sindria how King Sinbad was. Quite shyly, I might add.”

“Huh, seriously? They know each other?”

“Apparently they were acquainted in Balbadd’s revolution. I’m not sure how well, but the knowledge that they know each other at all makes me slightly uneasy. I worry that King Sinbad may deem her a weak link.”

“I mean, he’s not _wrong_ …”

“She’s better at governing than I originally expected,” Hakuryuu said. “To be honest, I find her to be one of the stronger links. Even so, dealing with Sinbad requires caution. So I’d rather you don’t tell her too much.”

“Got it,” Judar said. Keeping Kougyoku in the dark was easy. He didn’t see her all too often anymore, and it was better to be on the side of those hiding facts than to be someone who didn’t know anything.

“I don’t trust him to not try something again,” Hakuryuu said. “He doesn’t strike me as the type to give up easily.”

“Yeah,” Judar agreed. “But that’s good, isn’t it? Keeps us from getting too bored.”


	30. Chapter 30

Returning from Balbadd was the same as usual.

That was to say that returning was never ideal: someone always messed it up. It was kind of funny, actually. Judar looked forward to returning more when he knew things were going to go wrong than if everything were always perfect.

At least this time it was easier to place what was wrong: the guards weren’t in their normal positions. They weren’t _anywhere._

“Guess they didn’t think we’d be back so soon,” Judar said. “Even though it was just a coronation. Not very bright, are they?”

Hakuryuu glanced at every door they passed like he was wondering if they’d all turned in early, but he was Hakuryuu - there was no way he believed an innocent explanation like that, not for a second. “That was on intentional on my part. I said we would be gone a few days longer in case we had a reason to stay, but nothing ended up coming up,” Hakuryuu said. “I wonder what they’re trying to accomplish.” 

“Dunno. They’re just guards, though. I can take care of them.”

“With plants?”

“Well, yeah,” Judar said. “It works on the army. Or you could get rid of them for slacking, if you don’t wanna piss them off too bad.”

Hakuryuu shook his head. “That would be pointless. Besides, I doubt they’re slacking. If that were the case, only one or two guards would be gone. Not all of them.”

“You’ve got a point.”

“If the right and left generals had lived through the war this would be easy to figure out, but…”

Hakuryuu’s words trailed off as they passed a lone guard. He watched the guard leave the way they’d come out of the corner of his eye, then looked towards where the guard had come from.

“Wanna split up?” Judar asked.

Hakuryuu nodded. He called to the lone guard while Judar backtracked the guard’s steps. It was harder than it sounded - after the long hallway it was hard to know which room the guard came from or if he’d been in a courtyard all along.

He probably hadn’t been alone, though.

Judar closed his eyes and tried to focus on the palace’s rukh composition. It was better than guessing. If the guards were all together as Hakuryuu thought, they’d be easy to find by their rukh.

He felt a pull to his left, the silent voices of the rukh answering his call. When he focused on its presence, he felt the rough wing-beats of one hundred people’s rukh.

Judar smiled and walked towards the concentration of rukh. Technically this was the worst case scenario, but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t looking forward to scaring some sense into them.

Their rukh led him to the small room where the guards were crammed together - it was either an unused storage room or a bedroom belonging to one of the guards’ supervisors. Judar listened to muffled voices from outside for a moment to verify that he had the right place. He couldn’t make out their words, but they were angry about something.

He drew a hand to the door, closed it in a fist, and knocked.

Everyone quieted. He continued knocking, suppressing a cackle at the way their rukh flitted anxiously.

Most rooms in the palace only had one door, and Judar was standing right outside this room’s only exit. Really, if they were planning on doing something strange, they’d best pick a room they could escape from next time.

They’d recognize his voice if he spoke. That would be funny too, but the panicked whispering at who could possibly be at the door was much funnier than the shocked gasp they’d give at hearing he was back earlier than expected. He wondered briefly if they’d come up with a secret knock together that he hadn’t used.

Whether they had a secret knock or not, this was a pretty treacherous way to spend their time.

The voices reached a consensus and heavy footsteps moved to the other side of the door. Judar’s smile grew, free hand moving to his staff as he took a step back to meet their leader.

He didn’t have much magoi or stamina from transferring early but he could take a few humans any day if push came to shove.

The door opened and a man as tall as the door frame stared down at him. His eyes widened, disturbed at Judar’s presence at a level that surpassed just being caught red-handed, but he gulped and quickly hid it under a stern lip.

“Lord Priest. Is there something you need?”

“Obviously. I wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

“…What is it? At this hour…”

Judar shot a few lights from his staff. If they complained about the time, it was easy for him to make it light as day. “It’s not like you were sleeping. Come on, out. All of you.”

He had the guards leave the room one by one. Even if he tried to put plants in their minds now, it would still take a few days for them to work properly. And he still didn’t know what they were doing. It was possible that they’d been chatting about how much they hated their jobs together or something equally innocent. Unlikely, but hey. There was no point in killing them now. Especially since scaring them was so much more fun.

For now it was impossible to know what they were doing, so he focused on the only thing he could do: look at their faces. Thanks to his clairvoyance magic, he didn’t have to remember them. He just needed to see them well enough to be able to find them later if Hakuryuu wanted.

Once they were all gathered outside the room, looking nervous as they stood lined up with their back straight against the wall, Judar got a good look at them. When he was done, he spoke plainly. “That’s all. You can go now.”

Letting them go without doing anything made them more nervous than telling them what the purpose of what he’d done was, by the looks on their faces. He could almost taste their cold sweat as they walked away, careful as could be not to turn their backs to Judar.

Judar extinguished the lights and the moths swirling around them dispersed as slowly as the guards. He’d done his part. Hakuryuu was probably done with his, too.

He yawned. Now that that was dealt with, he let the sleepiness he’d come to expect with transferring to wash over him.

Using so much transfer magic in one day was exhausting, and as much as he wanted to hear about how things went on Hakuryuu’s end, sleep was also starting to look very appealing. If they didn’t share a bed he’d skip out on hearing it and sleep first. 

Hakuryuu was already in their room when he entered. Judar changed clothes to something he could sleep in while Hakuryuu explained what he learned from the guard.

“He was very surprised to see me. Tried to get away and go back the way he came several times,” Hakuryuu said. “Judging by his attitude I’d say he was trying to alert the others.”

“Probably,” Judar said. “I found them all crammed in someone’s bedroom chatting.”

“About what?”

“Dunno. Sounded kinda mad, though.” Judar tied his robe so it’d stay, but not nearly as tight as he used to have to tie it. It didn’t matter if it came undone in the middle of the night anymore. He flopped on the bed, stretched out next to where Hakuryuu was sitting.

Hakuryuu sighed. “I think I know what they’re upset about… I thought there might be repercussions like this now that we’re not fighting a war.”

“What do you mean?”

“Those plants. It’s not like it’s easy to hide the change in behavior from the rest of the army, and putting them in the soldiers again probably scared the guards. I imagine they’ll try to flee the palace now.”

“Then what?”

“I don’t know. Either they’ll be satisfied as deserters or want something more. Were the ones you found those who have scars from last year, when there was a risk of Kouen’s supporters staying in Rakushou to act on their own?”

Judar recalled the lined up guards. The entry wound from his magic was obvious on many of their foreheads, now that he thought of it. He’d gotten so used to seeing them that he didn’t consciously notice them anymore. “Yeah, now that you mention it. But I guess they remembered how to get scared. All they did was cower.”

“They might have remembered fear, but they’re still far more impulsive and hot-headed than normal people. They probably won’t be satisfied with just deserting.”

“Yeah. They’re not good for anything but fighting. A deserter’s life wouldn’t suit them.” Judar rolled around so he could put his head in Hakuryuu’s lap to look up at him. It wasn’t as comfortable as it looked, but the way Hakuryuu tensed up, unsure of what to do, made it worth staying. “What do you think they’re gonna do?”

“I don’t know. It depends on how well they can plan. Their smartest move would be finding a leader that can sympathise with their plight. For example, if they could reach the place where Koumei is exiled to…”

“Wouldn’t that just lead to another war?” Judar asked. “Kinda defeats the purpose of running from us.”

“Yes, but they have no concept of being tired of fighting. We made sure of that.”

“Guess I should’ve killed them after all. Want me to go round them up again?”

“No,” Hakuryuu said. “We have no proof of ill intent. It’s possible that they were just complaining amongst themselves with no plans to act on it. Killing them could aggravate the problem.”

Judar blinked as his eyes lost focus trying to follow Hakuryuu’s busy rukh. Hakuryuu had been content while they were out of the country, but now that they’d been back for an hour he was already troubled.

Hakuryuu noticed him staring into what probably looked like nothing and ran a hand through Judar’s bangs. “I’ll think of something. You can go to sleep for now.”

“What would I do without you to give me permission to sleep?” Judar said dryly. 

“…Sorry. I guess I should sleep too.”

Hakuryuu’s tendency to micromanage when he was stressed could get annoying, but he did it out of reflex. He didn’t really expect Judar to follow his orders. Not anymore, at least. Actually, it was kinda cute when he sheepishly apologized for it now.

Judar rose and twisted to meet Hakuryuu’s lips. Kissing him didn’t help the country get back on its feet, but it did keep Hakuryuu from getting too obnoxious with his mental worst-case scenarios. That was important, too.

If just laying with him and kissing him worked long term and solved all their problems, Judar would have no problem doing just that. He knew as well as Hakuryuu that the emperor couldn’t ignore his responsibilities, though.

A week passed without Hakuryuu making a decision on how to deal with the guards. In that time, many fled.

“I can track them down,” Judar offered. He was more eager to end the issue the longer it lasted, and killing the deserters sounded like a good way to make an example.

“I don’t want you leaving the palace for that long.”

“Come on. Afraid something will happen?”

“Not afraid. It’d just be stupid to ignore the possibility.” Hakuryuu sighed. “I really thought that once I had the crown I wouldn’t have to keep fighting for it. But it hasn’t gone that well at all. The people aren’t cooperative like they were under Kouen, despite my blood being most fit for the throne… Maybe we really are a people that strive for conflict.”

“Blood’s a shitty reason to rule anyway.”

Hakuryuu frowned. “It’s the norm for humans. You already know that.”

“That’s not what Sinbad said.”

“Do you agree with him?”

“On this? Pretty much, yeah. But I can pretend like blood’s important if you want me to,” Judar said.

“You don’t need to… I understand what you mean. But without it, I’m not any more fit to be emperor than anyone else.”

“That’s not true. You fought for it. You’ll fight your way out of this in no time, too.” Judar said and smiled, expecting Hakuryuu to return it.

He didn’t. He didn’t even meet Judar’s eyes.

Judar’s smile faltered. “Hey.”

“Sorry.”

“Just say the word and I’ll do it,” Judar said.

“Do what…?”

“Fix it. Not everything, but I can at least fix what you’re worried about. For me, it’s easy.”

He didn’t drop his smile until he was far out of Hakuryuu’s sight.

Judar gave Hakuryuu space while he thought about it, not bothering him in the gardens in his free time at dusk. The rainy season was finally beginning to dry up, and it left the more delicate plants a melancholy shade of green.

Hakuryuu probably promised himself somewhere along the way that he wouldn’t do it, but now it was the smartest move. So he had to think about what Judar said, even if he didn’t want to.

He was practical when it came to these things. He’d come around.

Hakuryuu’s eyes cleared of uncertainty after a long sleep. In the cool morning air he smiled with the solution Judar had been urging him to accept.

“I will visit the penal colony of Samon Island where Koumei and Kouha are being kept.”

“Why?”

“To get rid of the source of the problem: the hope that things can return to how they were.”

Judar smiled. He wasn’t doing it to be mean. More than if Hakuryuu had just moped, he was happy that he was ready to accept it. Killing them would make Hakuryuu’s life much easier. “It’s about time.”

“I don’t think they would have been a problem if the people of Kou had been left to their own devices,” Hakuryuu said. “I had intended to let those two live their lives out in exile since they never personally threatened the throne. But I think King Sinbad may still be interfering. And if they’re involved in treason, even unintentionally, then they’ve become a personal threat and must be dealt with.”

Judar kissed him. Just committing to the reality that they’d go to war with the Seven Seas Alliance and maybe even Reim had taken a lot out of Hakuryuu. Committing to killing more of his ever-dwindling family must have taken tremendous strength as well.

Hakuryuu couldn’t close his eyes and drown out his feelings, so he needed support in times like this. That and distraction from the emotional side of it. He’d fare better thinking about the logistics.

“Are we gonna go there now?” Judar asked. “Or I could go myself. Seems like something happens every time we’re gone.”

“It’d be best if there were someone we could keep here, but it’s fine even if there’s not. I think it was actually a good thing that we learned about the guards’ strange behavior. With the army here, I feel safe leaving for just a week.”

“Wait, a _week_?”

Hakuryuu nodded. “I don’t feel good about using transfer magic the whole way. You said before that it works because you can focus on a large quantity of rukh, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Samon Island has a very small population - less than one thousand inhabitants.”

“…Well! I could probably still make it.”

“‘Probably’ doesn’t mean much when the alternative is being stuck in the middle of the ocean.”

“I can swim!”

“I can too, but not the distance back to Rakushou. It isn’t worth it. So we’re taking a ship.”

Judar groaned. “Aren’t boats really slow? It’ll take forever!”

“They aren’t that bad as long as you have something to do. Besides, the island itself is nothing more than a few days away by boat.”

Judar was about to argue when he realized what that meant. Hakuryuu couldn’t bring the whole palace on a ship so he’d do something more productive than work. Like spend a lot of time with him.

Hakuryuu smiled. “I thought you’d agree. I’ll send a request to the port.”

“We could just show up, you know. You’re—”

“Emperor, yes, I know. But it’s more polite to at least give notice, and there’s no reason to give the people more reasons to complain. It won’t take long. A week or two at most.”

Judar shrugged and Hakuryuu wrote a letter asking for transport to Samon Island so he could send it off before he attended to the rest of the day’s duties.

At least he’d be forced to take a break on the boat.

It would be a break for Judar, too. Away from practicing magic in the underground research facility where he spent too much of his time. Spending time with Hakuryuu should keep him from thinking about the black rukh thing, too.

He’d been trying not to think about it, but it wasn’t going well. Every now and then, seeing Hakuryuu unable to relax since they came back to Kou, he did think about it.

Sinbad said it was a sign of suffering. Judar thought that was a little dramatic, since he wasn’t doing too bad. Hakuryuu on the other hand… he really didn’t know. When they spent time together he was fine. The time they spent together was only a small part of the day, but it at least meant he had something to look forward to. They both did.

Suffering was more bleak than that.

Judar was eager to transfer himself and Hakuryuu to the southern Youshuu region - the closest mainland harbor to the island - when the day Hakuryuu had decided on finally came.

The port town itself wasn’t impressive. The designs and placements of buildings were the same as what Judar was used to, but in both size and density, it was incomparable to Rakushou. It was several times smaller than Balbadd, which was already many times smaller than Rakushou. It was a fittingly out of the way place for the boat to the penal colony to dock, though. He’d give it that.

Hakuryuu tried to dress in a more subtle fashion by leaving the heavy robes at home, but he didn’t do a very good job of it. Only royalty could wear white in the first place, and the ornate dragon design really didn’t help. The region’s soldiers, stationed for protection, bowed as he passed.

The only people who had to know Hakuryuu was important enough to go wherever he wanted were the crew of the route that regularly carried supplies to Samon Island. Judar smiled at the greedy looks sailors gave them. “They’re gonna try and rob us in our sleep,” Judar said. “Maybe our three days of sailing will be more exciting than I thought.”

“They’re the only ones who know how to steer the ship, you know. Don’t get on their bad side by bragging.”

Judar laughed. “I already told you! I’m the best swimmer here. You don’t need to worry about getting stuck at sea.”

“No, _you_ don’t need to worry about getting stuck at sea.”

“Hey! I’d help you for sure!”

The ship was actually far more spacious on the inside than Judar had assumed it’d be. Hakuryuu was shown to the captain’s room to use if he pleased. Judar was reluctantly shown to another room at the opposite end of the ship.

“You know I’m not gonna use this, right?” Judar asked as his guide was about to leave him to get settled in. If rumors of him being a siren had reached the edges of the world, rumors of him being Hakuryuu’s siren lover had to have reached the edges of the empire by now. It was one of Judar’s greatest accomplishments, so he had no qualms about rubbing it in humans’ faces, either.

“Captain’s orders,” the sailor grumbled. Chances were it was his room being offered to Judar. If he slept in it anyway, it’d be going against his superiors’ orders.

Or maybe his bitterness had more to do with his emperor obviously bedding a siren than annoyance at giving his up his bed. It was hard to tell, so Judar just shrugged. “Whatever.”

He watched the sailor leave. Judar realized a little late that sailors were the very people he’d been warned so many times about for their experience in killing sirens. He didn’t think they’d try, not with Hakuryuu around.

But it was a possibility. It was probably also the reason Hakuryuu kept him up tossing and turning their first night at sea, waking at every little sound that stood out from between the waves, judging by the way he instantly turned to face Judar each time.

It was nice and all that Hakuryuu’s first instinct was to get protective, but Judar would rather he just sleep. Besides, he could take care of himself. Laying on top of Hakuryuu kept him from moving until he got stiff and sweaty and shoved Judar off.

“You’re keeping me up,” Judar complained. “I thought you were used to ships. Isn’t that how you went to Sindria? You know, back when you were studying?”

“…Sorry. I just can’t sleep.”

“Then get up and do something else.” Judar stole Hakuryuu’s pillow and put it over his own head. “The light won’t keep me up, see?”

“Yeah,” Hakuryuu mumbled. “You’re right.”

When Judar woke up next, Hakuryuu was writing something at the cabin’s desk next to a nearly spent candle.

“Good morning,” he said when Judar stirred.

Judar wiped the blurriness from his eyes. “You look like shit. Did you even sleep?”

“I’ll sleep tonight.”

Judar rolled his eyes. It was like he didn’t even understand that he’d enjoy being awake more if he slept more.

Hakuryuu spent much of the day lingering at the ship’s deck, watching the sea’s uniform waves continue forever. It wasn’t Judar’s idea of fun - he was familiar enough with the sea, really.

“I thought you didn’t like the ocean,” he said to Hakuryuu.

Hakuryuu shrugged. “I don’t hate it.”

The view from the ship’s deck was about what Judar had been expecting. If he leaned over the edge, he could just barely see the place where the wood and water met. That was where’d listened to humans speak for the first time. It felt like it was a lifetime away, but it was only a few years in reality. Three now, was it?

If he’d spent those three years in the ocean, every day would have felt the same. He was glad that he came up.

“You’ll fall if you keep that up,” Hakuryuu said.

“It doesn’t matter even if I do. Being clumsy’s no problem with gravity magic.”

“You would know,” Hakuryuu said. “What are you even doing?”

Judar pointed to the place the base of the ship. Hakuryuu wouldn’t be able to see it unless he leaned over too, which he wouldn’t. “I spent a lot of time by a ship before I came up,” Judar said. “Down by the edge there. Sailors are always yelling, so it wasn’t too hard to hear them over the waves.”

Hakuryuu leaned over the deck just a little to try to see. But he clung to it too closely to see what Judar was pointing at, knuckles white trying to ensure that he wouldn’t fall.

So he really didn’t like the ocean. That or he was way too tired to remember how to swim right now.

“I’d think you would have learned a few words beforehand if you spent so long listening to sailors,” Hakuryuu said.

“I tried! But it’s way harder than you think to learn it just by listening. And I’m way better at the modern language than you are at Torran now anyway. So it doesn’t matter.”

“Torran isn’t very useful,” Hakuryuu mumbled.

“You love being good at useless things. I bet you really just hate getting your accent made fun of.”

Hakuryuu looked away. So that was it.

“…Well, what do you expect, being taught by someone that probably had just as bad of an accent as you.”

Hakuryuu didn’t respond.

“And, um, with some practice you can probably do it right… I mean, you can tell me to fuck off perfectly!”

“That’s because I hear you say it all the time when I wake you up.”

“See! You’re really a fast learner, aren’t you.”

It wasn’t in Judar’s nature at all to compliment someone for making an effort. He didn’t really understand why he wanted to do it now of all times, but Hakuryuu’s little smile at being complemented suited him well.

“Are you trying to cheer me up?” Hakuryuu teased.

“Fuck off!”

As the day stretched on Hakuryuu’s attention span drifted from airheaded towards ‘obviously hasn’t slept in a day,’ making him difficult to talk to. Judar decided to spend his time doing something else: scaring the crew.

It wasn’t hard. Actually, it was annoyingly easy. He was a siren. Sailors were practically _made_ to be terrified of him.

The way that they never turned their backs to him reminded of him when he’d first returned to Rakushou after the war. Everyone had already known his face from the rumors of him being Hakuryuu’s lover, so word that he was a magician had traveled quickly. Everyone was scared of him because he could kill them with a simple flick of the staff.

As if humans couldn’t kill each other with just the flick of a sword.

The fact that he was a magician became old news quickly because the Torran magicians of rumor were a mythical thing. Even if they killed one, they wouldn’t have anything to show for it. But sirens were different. Their bodies were trophies, and many sailors had a personal history with them.

So it made sense. He liked to get a rise out them because they’d have to deal with him while they were on the same ship, and it was their own fault for being scared of him in the first place, but he couldn’t hold it against them. Not really.

After an hour of wandering around the ship, there was no one left to bother. They’d all left.

Cowards.

Watching the sea alone was no fun. Neither was talking to a spaced-out Hakuryuu. So Judar wandered along the hall leading to the crew’s quarters. He stopped when he heard a voice from the sailors’ commons room.

“What’s this country come to?” A voice Judar thought might have belonged to the captain asked. “Last emperor was a siren, and now we’ve got another one that wants nothing more than to lick the ground another one a’ those beasts walks on. Lord Kouen was the only one we could trust around here.”

Another sailor grunted in agreement. “An’ after he outlawed the rest of us touchin’ their scales, too. Guess us poorfolk aren’t allowed to make a living no more.”

“Hear, hear.”

Well, they weren’t wrong. Hakuryuu never said he’d make the Kou Empire a fair place.

Even if Hakuryuu managed to fix all their problems, they could still hate him for being another king that associated with sirens.

After all, to sailors, sirens were violent creatures. Their first instinct when captured in a fishing net was to try to crush all the bones in humans’ bodies, or perhaps boil their blood and cook them from the inside. And now that Judar, a magician, was acknowledged to be a siren, they probably suspected that many other tragedies at sea were really the cause of sirens in a bad mood. Tragedies that their emperor wouldn’t save them from.

It was stupid, but having an enemy made it easier to live. Judar understood that well. Hakuryuu was their enemy by association just like Kouen had been Hakuryuu’s enemy by association.

They’d probably never accept Hakuryuu as emperor. That went for all the coastal people of the empire affected by his new laws and the cessation of trade with the Seven Seas Alliance.

They couldn’t get Kouen back, but maybe they’d like to have Koumei if they could bring him back. Which they could. Because they were the crew tasked with bringing supplies to the exiles.

Ugh. Hakuryuu was always right, wasn’t he? Paranoid as he could be, it was never without reason.

He found Hakuryuu in the ship’s kitchens with as many pans as he could fit stuffed on the small stove, the rest of the counters covered with the sliced-off rotting peels of root vegetables. He looked a little more awake with something to do.

“Wow, you’re _cooking_ for them?”

“They’ve lent us use of their ship and rooms,” Hakuryuu said. “It’s the least I can do.”

Judar peeked into the pan he was stirring to find the other half of the root vegetables.

“They don’t seem to like them much,” Hakuryuu explained. “Half the ration was rotting.”

“So you cut up the other half to make them eat.”

Hakuryuu smiled. “Being wasteful is in poor taste. Of course, the same goes for you.”

“I’d rather jump off the deck and catch my own dinner.”

“I’m not stopping you.”

Judar laughed. He wrapped his arms around Hakuryuu’s waist - something he always complained about while he was cooking - and leaned his chin on Hakuryuu’s shoulder. “All the sailors are out there complaining about you.”

“…Are they.”

“Yeah. They’re still mad about the siren thing. And they’d rather have Kouen on the throne. Exactly as you guessed.”

“I see. Thanks for telling me.”

“Mm.”

“And get off so I can cook.”

Judar shot another look in the pan. Knowing that half of it was spread across the table, discarded for rot, didn’t make it any more appetizing. “I’m not moving until you make something better than that to eat.”

“I can’t make anything better unless you move. Besides, that isn’t all I’m making.”

“What’s in those other pans?”

“Millet porridge, then fish with netsumegusa root, and then the small one is citrus… I thought boiling it down might make a nice sauce but there’s no sugar on the ship. So it might be sour.”

“Oh, so you did make fish.” Judar let go of his waist. “I’ll have that.”

“Give it a few minutes to finish simmering.”

“Can’t I just set it on fire for a few seconds?”

“No. Absolutely not.”

Hakuryuu didn’t let Judar have any until the ship’s dining room was set and the ship’s crew had been called. He kept a neutral expression as he spoke in pleasantries to the captain.

As much as Hakuryuu was betting on keeping busy to keep him awake, he faltered now that he was seated. Judar touched his glass and urged the rukh to cool it. Ice cold water would wake him up.

He laughed at Hakuryuu’s shocked expression when he sipped it and sputtered, trying too hard not to cough at the unexpected cold. His glare was much more awake than the polite smile he’d been showing the crew while chatting.

From the sour expressions of the crew, though they didn’t mind eating the fish, they could do without the vegetables. They also could probably do without eating across from a siren, especially one that made no move to pretend he wasn’t flirting with their emperor. There was nothing they could do about it, making it funny.

The lowest-ranked sailors were ordered to clean up the dishes once they finished eating. Judar took that as his cue to steal Hakuryuu away. He took him by the hand, all but dragging him back to their room.

“You don’t have anything to do now that they’re all fed,” Judar said. “So you’ve gotta spend time with me.”

“We’ve spent the past hour together. I’ve hardly been ignoring you.”

“Yeah, but I want to spend time with you alone. More alone than in the kitchen.” Judar shut the door behind himself. “Oh, but don’t get me wrong. I don’t mind kissing you in the kitchen. You’d blame me if you burned the food because of it.”

“It’d be your fault if I burned it because of you. Of course I’d blame you.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Judar put his hands on Hakuryuu’s shoulders and smiled when Hakuryuu closed the distance between them. Even though they kissed all the time, he still wasn’t tired of it. Not even when they bumped teeth or Hakuryuu bit his lip too hard.

Well, bumping teeth could be pretty annoying. And Hakuryuu was always finding new ways to make him bleed - he had to be getting off on it, really - and Judar always had bruises as a result. But they were nice bruises. Ones he liked to see when he took a bath and remembered why he had them.

Hakuryuu had him pushed against the cabin’s wall in no time, but it was more for a comfortable position than to be rough. His kisses and breathing were slower than if he wanted to go all the way.

But if he told Hakuryuu to go to sleep, he’d just argue and try to prove how awake he was. And Judar didn’t really care either way: kissing him would be nice and sleeping together would be nice. Hakuryuu did keep him up late, after all. He pushed Hakuryuu off just enough to motion to him that the bed would be more comfortable.

It didn’t take much of kissing Hakuryuu into the bed for him to relax completely. Not relax like he was in a better mood. Relax like he was catching up on that sleep he needed.

“Hakuryuu?”

No response. Instead he angled his head away, burying it in his pillow as much as possible with Judar on top of him.

“Hey, Hakuryuu.”

Judar poked him a couple times and sighed when he got no reaction. If he didn’t need that sleep, he’d wake Hakuryuu up as loud as he could without a second thought.

He ran a hand through Hakuryuu’s bangs, moving them out of his face. He’d give Hakuryuu all sorts of grief about falling asleep in the middle of kissing when he woke up.

Not now, though. For now he’d take a nap with him.

The open sea was cooler than the mainland and it was much easier to get comfortable curled around Hakuryuu despite the lower quality of the bed compared to what they had in the palace. Judar took a deep breath at his neck, taking in the smell of clothes that for once didn’t carry the scent of the candles of the inner palace.

It shouldn’t have been pleasantly nostalgic to think back to before Hakuryuu had become emperor, not when they’d worked so hard for it. He just liked the smell of Hakuryuu’s soap better than the smell of candles. Hakuryuu was a little more relaxed back then, but they weren’t as close. So there was no need to miss it.

Judar fell asleep easily and woke up feeling refreshed. Hakuryuu looked like he’d still be out for the rest of the night and Judar left without waking him.

The deck was dark except from the light of constellations and the moon reflecting off the sea. He wanted to see what those sailors were up to, and if possible, give them a piece of his mind. But it was late. He’d slept for longer than he thought. Maybe no one else would be awake.

Judar got distracted from his goal by the reflection of the moon in the sea, swaying indefinitely. It looked the same as when he first saw it three years ago. Bright against a dark sea, the first light of the sky he’d ever seen. He hadn’t swam in the sea for a year now but he didn’t miss it. Nothing about it suited him.

He didn’t think he’d ever go back, not if he had the choice. The view from atop the ship was so much better.

Judar was brought out of thought by the sound of ceramic shattering. He turned to see a shocked sailor.

“Si… ah, um, Lord Priest,” a sailor said. It was a voice he recognized from earlier - he had some colorful insults about Hakuryuu’s tastes in partners, but when faced with a real siren he was speechless.

“What?”

“I apologize, I… I didn’t see you…”

He couldn’t see it in the dim light, but by his wavering voice he was sure the sailor was shivering. “What, you think I’m gonna eat you?”

The sailor, crouched to pick up his broken candle holder, froze.

“Come on,” Judar prompted. “Do you think I will?”

“Please don’t… I have family…”

Judar wrinkled his nose. “You really think I’d put a human as gross as you in my mouth?”

The sailor’s form quivered with a sob. His honest fear reached his rukh, chirping screams. Judar wanted to step on the little scared birds to shut them up.

“Humans should be better than this. More fearless. Sad excuses for humans like you shouldn’t exist,” Judar said. It came out all at once, and he only stopped to think once he said it. “But I’m not going to kill you,” he added. It sounded unconvincing to his ears, but the sailor groaned in relief.

“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you so much.”

“You’ve probably met tons of sirens,” Judar said. “There are a lot more of us pretending to human than you think. And none of them have killed you yet. So I won’t either. But…”

The sailor looked up from his place on the ground with his dull and tear-stained eyes. He didn’t look harmful in the slightest. But it was people like him that were making Hakuryuu’s life difficult.

“If you’ve got a problem with the emperor, tell him in person,” Judar said. “Or I really will come and kill you.”

It was an empty threat - Judar thought that’d be obvious. Even so, the sailor nodded vigorously and bowed before scurrying off with the pieces of his candle holder.

Alone on the deck again, Judar sighed and looked back down at the moon’s reflection. He didn’t feel like talking to the rest of the crew anymore. Hakuryuu could deal with the rest himself, if he chose to. He was better at politics. Judar was more suited to what came after trying to reason with them.

Until that time came, there wasn’t much for him to do on this trip. Just watch the moon sway back and forth, changing just enough for him to be sure time was still passing. His dislike of it was irrational. Even if the view from above was better, he wasn’t a human just because he was looking at the moon from the deck of a ship. He knew that.

Judar trusted Hakuryuu to accomplish whatever he set his mind to, but this was something that would never change no matter how many laws he made allowing sirens to live on land. He’d always belong in the sea, on some level. Everyone knew that.

He took his staff from his pocket and waved it around over the deck absentmindedly. Even without applying any magoi, he had a good enough affinity with the rukh of the sea that it twisted as he commanded, streams swirling upwards, defying gravity for his sake as he slowly waved his staff.

If he’d been born in a huge shallow sea colony surrounded by family and other sirens, things might have been different. But…. right now, even as he planned to kill Kouha and Koumei with his own two hands for the sake of the country they’d worked so hard for, whether Hakuryuu wanted it or not… he wouldn’t change anything.

A lot of things had happened, and they’d always be the only ones who understood why they happened the way they did. Or maybe not even they really understood. It wasn’t the right path. He understood that from the beginning. He just wanted to keep walking it a little longer.

They would run out of people to kill sooner or later. By then they’d both be tired.

After a few hours of wandering around the lifeless deck and watching the waves go by, Judar went back to sleep. Hakuryuu’s side was just as warm as it was when he left it and it was easy to relax back into unconsciousness.

Hakuryuu woke him up when the sun rose, shocked and a little panicked that he’d slept so long.

“You fell asleep while I was kissing you. Who’s bad at kissing now, huh?” It might’ve been a better insult if he hadn’t yawned halfway, but it was enough to make Hakuryuu’s face redden.

“Th-that couldn’t have happened. I’m sure you must have… also lay down, and—”

“On top of you, maybe.”

“…Anyway! I can’t believe _you_ slept for just as long as me!”

“I didn’t,” Judar said and yawned as he tied Hakuryuu’s artificial arm on, “I got up for awhile in the middle of the night. Scared one of the sailors real bad, too. They’re such cowards.”

Hakuryuu pursed his lips. If Judar didn’t have to elaborate, that was good. Hakuryuu knew him well. He thanked Judar when his arm was secured in place, a hand lingering on his back.

He didn’t look like he wanted to leave. For being a fearless emperor and all, he didn’t always handle criticism well. Even if he did have a productive conversation with the crew, he’d still come out of it stressed.

“We can spend all day in here. No one would mind,” Judar said. He knew his words were empty - even if he’d be okay with it, Hakuryuu wouldn’t.

“No. I want to talk to the crew.” Hakuryuu kissed him again, hands firm like he wanted to pull Judar closer, but moved away instead. “I have to figure out how bad the situation in this region is. They’re as good of a place to start as any. You can do something else while I take care of it. I don’t mind.”

“Not much else to do here if you’re gonna be busy.” Judar made a shooing motion with his hand once Hakuryuu finished getting dressed. “Don’t take all day, alright?”

“No promises. If you get bored, you could always practice magic.”

“Probably will. Nothing better to do.”

Hakuryuu smiled apologetically and left. Judar sighed. He was just going to be practicing magic like usual anyway. Should’ve known.

He wasn’t confident that he had the magoi to be making lavish ice displays or shooting fire into the sky, so he just practiced temperature regulation. It’d get cold again sooner than later, so he may as well figure out how to avoid freezing his ass off on land.

Hakuryuu spent the last day of the boat trip trying to understand what the sailors thought he was doing wrong. By the time the boat docked, he didn’t look like he understood it any better.

“Did they talk to you at all?” Judar asked.

“Not really. They were too scared of being executed to say anything worthwhile. I think I’d like to talk to the region’s lord.” Hakuryuu sighed. “I should have done that in the first place, but it can’t be helped now. We’ll need to take a detour back to town after surveying the island.”

The supply boat only docked for one day before heading back to the mainland. In that time, a window of only a few hours, they had to figure out if Koumei and Kouha were planning anything, and if they were, if Sinbad was involved.

Hakuryuu probably wanted to avoid killing any more of his relatives, but after listening to the zeal of the sailors with their unwavering faith in Kouen’s bloodline, Judar knew it had to be done.

Killing Koumei and Kouha was risky because it could turn out like Kouen’s death - a huge source of guilt for Hakuryuu. But letting them live with the knowledge that half the empire wished Hakuryuu dead, that they could rally around that desire so long as Koumei or Kouha acted as their figurehead… 

As long as those two lived, they’d be a threat. It didn’t matter if they did anything or not. Just that other people might think of them when they raised their swords.

“They’re the only ones who could lead a revolt, aren’t they?” Judar asked. He meant for it to sound offhanded, but it didn’t come out right.

Hakuryuu didn’t respond for a moment. It looked like the words were stuck in his throat and he swallowed a couple times in an attempt to rid his voice of betrayal before speaking. “No revolt would be successful if not led by a man of the Ren family.”

That was all he needed to hear.


	31. Chapter 31

The people of Kou’s penal colony didn’t bat an eye at their arrival. Being criminals, they probably didn’t care much for the emperor - and that was if they even recognized him. Judar didn’t get the feeling news travelled very quickly when they needed a boat from the empire’s edges just to get enough food to live.

“Why bother with sending them supplies, anyway?” Judar asked. “They’re living on an island. They can just fish.”

“Islanders need to eat their vegetables too,” Hakuryuu said.

“But they’re prisoners.”

“They’re exiles. Not death row inmates.”

“Whatever!” Judar shot a nasty look at the disembarking crew one last time before walking off. Hakuryuu caught up to him in no time.

“We only have until sundown before the ship sets sail again,” Hakuryuu said. “It shouldn’t be hard to figure out if anything’s going on before then, judging by the size of this place.”

“Yeah, it’s smaller than I thought it’d be.”

As they wandered into the island, Hakuryuu explained that soldiers and generals often came to make sure nothing was amiss, so they were used to strangers. That was why no one was paying them any mind.

If their soldiers were trustworthy enough, they wouldn’t have to come back in person. It was fine that they were here, though. He hadn’t seen Kouha or Koumei since the war ended. Maybe they’d changed. Maybe not.

Samon Island was tropical like Sindria, but without mountains to cradle and protect it from the waves, the sea breeze carried a refreshing coolness. If only it blew more often. Then maybe he’d be able to get rid of the urge to jump in the water to cool down.

The people acted like they’d always lived there, weaving nets and fishing without a care in the world. It didn’t look like they were in exile at all - Judar had been expecting an impressive prison with walls that reached the clouds.

“Next time someone pisses you off, send them to the research facility instead,” Judar muttered. “They’ve got it good here.”

“It is surprising that they’ve adapted so well. Judging by the population estimates, most are outside, too.”

“Think they’re all innocent? Or did they just hear about you coming?”

“I’m not sure…” 

No one paid attention to their muted conversation. They were all too busy doing their own things. Judar looked away from their faces and to their rukh.

It was hard to tell. They realized Hakuryuu was more important than other officials, that was for sure. Rukh flitted away, clearing a path out of fear as they passed.

If they were that afraid, they were either guilty or the same breed of idiot as the sailors. But it was impressive how little of it reached their faces. Perhaps that was to be expected of criminals.

At the end of their path, two people waited, rukh just as guarded as the rest of the island folk.

“Emperor Hakuryuu,” the taller of the two said. “It is a pleasure to see you.”

“Koumei. You look well,” Hakuryuu said. 

Judar looked him up and down with a scowl. He definitely remembered Koumei looking rattier. His eyes flicked to the person beside him. Anyone glued to Koumei’s side had to be Kouha, but he’d hit a serious growth spurt. Judar wondered idly if Hakuryuu would hit one soon too. That’d be weird. Judar liked being taller than him.

“This island is a good place,” Koumei said. “I only wish that my brother could live in peace alongside us.”

Koumei’s piercing eyes would’ve made anyone else nervous, but it just irritated Hakuryuu. “Perhaps he would have been able to if he hadn’t tried to take the throne.”

“For what reason have you decided to pay us a visit?” Koumei asked. “I can’t imagine it’s anything good.”

“Aw, come on,” Judar said. “Are we not allowed to want to talk?”

Koumei’s harsh expression broke into surprise for a moment before settling back as it was. He was good at talking, but only if he wasn’t interrupted.

“It’s a tropical island, yeah? Rakushou’s cooling down. Maybe we wanted a vacation.”

“This is a penal colony,” Kouha said. He didn’t sound too sure of himself when talking back to Judar. That’d probably never change. One of his legs was hanging oddly, helped by a crutch. So Hakuryuu wasn’t the only one with damage from the war.

“So? Looks like you’ve got it pretty good here,” Judar said.

“Judar, there’s no point in lying or avoiding the problem at hand,” Hakuryuu said. “We’ve come to examine the state of the island. We will search as needed.”

“Worried we’re plotting behind your back?” Kouha asked. “What was the point in exiling us if you were just gonna come back here later?”

“The situation has changed,” Hakuryuu said. “Be thankful that you were allowed several more years of life.”

Kouha’s eyes widened. Finally realizing the danger he was in, no doubt. “Wait,” he said. “You aren’t really going back on your word, are you?”

“Emperors don’t have to keep promises,” Judar said. “They can lie and go back on their word as many times as they want. Hakuryuu, I can keep them company. You can go look around.”

Hakuryuu nodded and left.

Judar looked down at Kouha’s leg. “Got lucky. Hakuryuu’s whole arm’s gone.”

“Can’t you just heal him with magic?”

“I dunno. Maybe. I kinda like him how he is, though. Makes him look cool. Besides, he lost it fair and square.”

“It’s a pain not being able to use a whole limb right,” Kouha said. “He’d probably like his arm back. But you don’t really care what he wants, do you?”

“I do.”

“Liar,” Kouha said.

“Sirens don’t need to tell the truth, either.”

“You’re really a siren?” Kouha asked. How had he built Judar up so much that he could still be disappointed? Kouha looked up at him, not as high as he used to have to, lip crinkled. “I thought they were lying. I thought they were just trying to make you sound like Gyokuen.”

Judar took a deep breath. These guys were as good as dead. There was no harm in giving them answers in their last moments. “They don’t need to lie for that,” he mumbled.

“Hakuryuu hated her,” Koumei said.

“So?”

“He truly hated her,” Koumei repeated. “And talking to you feels very much like talking to her. It’s… _unsettling_ that he’s chosen to take you in.”

“You really don’t get us, do you?”

“I suppose not, Koumei replied. “If I had, we wouldn’t have lost the war.”

Their conversation faded. Judar could tell by their choice in conversation: Hakuryuu would not find any evidence against them. Although they were tense, they didn’t particularly look like they were afraid of death.

They were confidant in that they would live to see the moon. It was annoying.

“Whether Hakuryuu finds damning evidence or not, you’re going to die,” Judar said.

“So Emperor Hakuryuu wishes for us to die either way?” Koumei asked. “Why?” Eyes piercing, Judar could tell that he saw through his words. He probably would’ve made a better siren than Judar, all things considered. The ability to see into the rukh would have done him well.

“It’s not like that matters,” Judar said. “I mean, you’re looking at it the wrong way. You shouldn’t be asking why you’re going to die. It’ll be a weight off his shoulders if you disappear. Shouldn’t you be grateful he let you live until now, knowing that?”

Hakuryuu came back with empty arms and a rigid expression. He probably didn’t even have the time to search the whole island, but it wasn’t necessary. He didn’t really leave to search. If he did, and if he really found nothing, it’d just trouble him. So he’d just gone to gather his thoughts and resolve.

Judar understood what it meant when they locked eyes. He smiled. In the end, Hakuryuu always understood things just as Judar did. 

“Koumei,” Hakuryuu said. His voice didn’t waver. “And Kouha as well. Have you prepared yourselves?”

Kouha sputtered in shock. “W, wait! You couldn’t have found anything! There was nothing _to_ find! We haven’t done anything wrong!”

“You expect me to listen to the pleading of a criminal?” Hakuryuu asked. A cold smile played at his lips. “It was naive of me to send you here in the first place. I’m just correcting my error.”

“You coward!” Kouha spat. “You’re just afraid! You’re scared of us! Do you really think it’s right to kill us because you’re scared?”

It wouldn’t be right to kill them no matter what his reason was. Their hollow eyes surely reached Koumei, as he raised his fan to hide his face and spoke.

“An empire is for the people, not for the emperor. Don’t forget that.”

Hakuryuu gritted his teeth.

“Do you want to do the honors, Hakuryuu?” Judar asked.

“…No. You can dispose of them however you wish.”

Last time was hard for Hakuryuu. So this was probably for the best.

Koumei and Kouha had the same defiant look on their faces in their last moments as their brother. Judar opened a transfer circle to the open ocean below them.

Hakuryuu watched them fall, swallowed up by the ground.

It was a fast and quiet way to dispose of their living bodies, but on the other side of the circle they’d struggle until they drowned.

It wasn’t humane at all, but it did get them out of their hair. They’d be regarded as missing people, but for how afraid humans were of him they’d figure it out soon enough. Judar stepped over the transfer circle, raising himself above the sky in the ground with his gravity magic and followed after them.

He could find Hakuryuu’s dark rukh anywhere, so he’d just go back once they were dead. He closed the transfer circle and let himself fall just above the surface of the sea to survey the rough waves for Kouha and Koumei.

They surfaced moments after their fall, coughing and flailing pathetically. Judar laughed.

“So much that defiant face. Too hard to look mean with water in your mouths, is it? Want some gills?”

Koumei could swim, from the looks of it, and managed to avoid swallowing too much water. Kouha wasn’t so lucky.

“Oh yeah, your leg. Sorry about that,” Judar said. “You don’t really have a chance of swimming to land like that, do you?”

Koumei gasped at seeing his brother struggle and moved to help him. Just that was enough to ruin his chance of living.

No miracle would save them if they were intent on both of them living. Judar shook his head.

“Using your last moments on him, huh? You’re never going to live yourself if you do that…”

Koumei was too focused on trying to keep his brother afloat to respond to Judar’s insults. He shrugged.

They both had good magoi and would be useful if he waited for them to die. But that’d mean staying and watching as they slowly sunk and collecting what was left off their bodies in the sea. It’d be useful, but… the more he watched, the less he wanted it.

“Whatever,” Judar said. He doubted that they could hear him over the waves crashing in their ears. “I don’t feel like watching this anymore. Say hi to Kouen…”

Judar opened a transfer circle back, focusing on the familiar distortion of Hakuryuu’s black rukh on the other side. He hadn’t opened the original transfer circle far and although it didn’t take much magoi, it still made him sore.

Hakuryuu was waiting for him quietly. Everyone had cleared out of their view long ago, not wanting to get on their bad sides, so there was no one but Hakuryuu around to react to what had just happened.

“You don’t think they can survive that?” Hakuryuu asked.

“If they can, they deserve the chance to rebel.”

“Fair enough.” 

Hakuryuu didn’t move long after the transfer circle closed. Judar stood with him, waiting for him to respond. They had to die for the sake of the country. They both knew that.

“You wanted to go to the port next, right?” Judar asked. “It’s a whole town, not a little island like this. I can easily bring us there. No need to take another long boat trip.”

Hakuryuu nodded. “That may be for the best.”

Judar focused on the rukh in his mind and found the closest mass large enough to be a human city. He waited for a moment to make sure it was moving like people instead of like a colony of fish, and when he was satisfied, readied his staff. He opened another transfer circle on the edge of it that should take them somewhere on the outskirts.

He might have enough energy for one more to Rakushou after this, but no more than that. Keeping a human body while opening transfer circles was much harder than it looked. Sweat was already forming on his neck, and it wasn’t from the heat.

When he opened his eyes on the other side, he saw a sad parody of Rakushou.

“This place sure is a dump,” Judar said.

“It’s just small.”

“Small and desolate, yeah. If you’re feeling nice.”

Judar looked around. When their aim was the boat, they’d entered in a quiet but organized street because they came in the early morning and had the luxury of transferring somewhere convenient. Now it was midday and people were out and about. Especially in a port town like this, he had to be aware of who he was. That meant aiming for outskirts or old alleys.

And man, were they old.

“Where’d you say this was again?” Judar asked.

“Youshuu. A southeastern region on the gulf. As for this city, it’s Taishou.”

“Right… and why’s this dump a part of Kou?”

“Because of Kouen’s ideals. It’s also one of the major salt producing provinces, in addition to its value as a maritime economic hub. Though it pales in comparison to Balbadd, it’s a good place for ships to restock for the last leg of the journey to Rakushou from the west.”

“The rest I get, but salt? Seriously?”

Hakuryuu shrugged. “It’s supposed to be a fairly well off region. This town should be an exception, not the norm.”

They roamed around the edges of the town, taking in the cracked walls and burnt buildings.

“Summer storms hit them hard,” Hakuryuu observed. “It’s strange that I didn’t hear about it. Then again, it’s not like fixing this small town would be a priority.”

“Can’t they fix it themselves?” Judar asked. “Your job is to rule them, not baby them.”

Hakuryuu didn’t respond. Judar got the feeling he didn’t know what he was supposed to be doing on the throne lately, with all the troubles inside and outside Kou.

Of course, Judar didn’t know any better than he did. What Hakuryuu spent all day arguing about in the throne room was a mystery that never seemed to get any clearer, even when he spent a few minutes in there himself.

Judar would have thought Hakuryuu would be glad to get some fresh air, but he should’ve known. It’d bother him whether he was in the throne room or not, so he might as well be working.

“I’d like to talk to the lord of this city,” Hakuryuu said. “He should be willing to speak with us.”

“Think he’ll believe you’re the emperor?”

“The Great Fire was national news. Since then I haven’t had much trouble being recognized. My injury from the war only solidified that.”

Right. Duh.

Judar was so used to seeing Hakuryuu’s scars that he usually didn’t think of them or where they were from. He’d had them since long before they met and it made sense that the people of the empire would use them in addition to his apparent wealth to verify that he was who he claimed to be.

“But they usually don’t recognize you in Balbadd.”

“Balbadd wasn’t a part of the Empire then, so it’s only natural.”

Judar never was the most observant, but maybe he’d have noticed earlier if Hakuryuu ever left the palace. He was pretty sure Hakuryuu hadn’t walked around Rakushou once since becoming emperor, and as a result, he’d never seen people on the streets recognize and bow to him.

But it wasn’t like Hakuryuu never left the inner palace. They had other places to go. Reim, Balbadd, and now here. Even if those were always ‘work trips,’ by Hakuryuu’s definition.

Judar explored the alleys with Hakuryuu following close behind. They weren’t too interesting. Next time he wanted to go somewhere, he was going to make sure it wasn’t so boring.

“Seriously, this place is a real dump,” Judar said for the third or forth time after walking through another deserted and trashy alley. “Isn’t this what guards are for?”

“What do you mean? There’s no one here to guard.”

“The garbage! It smells gross.”

Hakuryuu rolled his eyes. “You know that they’re there to catch criminals, right? Not pick up trash.”

“I’ve seen them grab trash before.”

“They were probably just bored. We don’t get much crime in Rakushou. Even when we do it’s usually fairly minor,” Hakuryuu said. He looked at Judar for a second, frowned, and focused his eyes back on the trashed alley. “As a result, when something like a murder does happen, everyone hears about it and it’s dealt with quickly.”

“Yeah, but they don’t catch everyone.”

“…I closed your case. It’s possible that they would have figured it out. Although I’m sure you wouldn’t have minded if they found out fair and square, it would be inconvenient for me.”

“Hey, don’t go meddling.”

“I’m emperor. I can do whatever I want.”

Judar wrinkled his nose, but it was hard to get mad when Hakuryuu looked so pleased to use Judar’s favorite defense against him. It was annoying that Hakuryuu decided dealing with his problems for him was a good idea, but he had a point.

Breaking out of a human prison would’ve been fun, though.

The crumbling walls cleared into something that looked more like a real city the closer they got to the center. It was a little exciting passing their first person, especially they way he looked at their expensive clothes and jewelry with disdain meant to hide the greed in his rukh. 

Judar had been regretting not just waiting until later to come so they could have just transferred closer to their objective, but seeing the common people of Kou’s eyes bulge at seeing their emperor in the flesh - whether they guessed it was him or thought he was just a spoiled noble - made it worth it. Judar thought it was funny, but Hakuryuu just walked faster.

He wasn’t in a very good mood, but that was to be expected. Koumei and Kouha had probably already drowned to death. But he was doing much better than after killing Kouen. With a goal in front of him, he didn’t have the time to dwell on it.

Judar heard the chirp of irritated rukh from behind. He slowed instinctively, focusing on listening to it, and Hakuryuu turned to see what made him change his pace.

The owner of the rukh didn’t wait. Hakuryuu bit his lip and stepped back as a knife was thrust his way.

Here was someone who knew damn well who Hakuryuu was. Judar’s borg activated to cover them both, forcing the knife to bounce back away. A scrawny human like this didn’t have anywhere near the strength to break his borg.

He yelled in frustration and tried to stab his knife through the borg he couldn’t see again and again. Hakuryuu was breathing hard by his side from the shock, but his face soon filled with disgust.

“An assassination attempt?”

“Can it even be called that? It’s pretty shoddy.”

Hakuryuu glanced from the cracked alley walls to the half-starved man before them. “We can’t be far from the city center now. Did this really happen in just a year?”

The man shouted in frustration. “You wouldn’t know, would you! Since you’ve been sittin’ on the throne the whole damn time! At least General Kouen… Lord Kouen was always fighting for us!”

Hakuryuu frowned. “To subjugate the other people of the continent was not to fight for you.”

“You’re just sayin’ that ‘cause you don’t want us to rebel! Well, all of us who were in General Kouen’s army, we know better! We taught the people on the plains how to live like they were civil, and we even gave them food!”

An ex-soldier, was he? Judar laughed. The sound caught the man’s attention and forced a shiver down his spine.

“What’s so funny, you—you beast! I can tell from the look of you, you know, we all can!”

“Isn’t it obvious? Kouen is dead.”

“We’ve still got his brothers!”

Judar smiled. “Give it up. Koumei and Kouha are dead.”

The man’s breath caught in his throat for a moment, wide eyes shifting between Judar and Hakuryuu. “You’re bluffing,” he managed to choke out.

Judar spun his staff just enough to condense the surrounding rukh at the tip with magic. “You can pretend all you want, but Koumei and Kouha can’t save you.”

He flicked the condensed orb to the ground by the angered man. It hit the cracked stone path with a sharp and metallic sound, and rolled slowly towards him.

Judar looked the ex-soldier in the eye. “If you want to be saved, save yourself.”

Both Hakuryuu and the man stepped away.

“That’s going to blow up in a minute or two,” Judar said. “You could run. Or you could try to stab Hakuryuu again with that knife of yours. He’s out of my borg’s range now that he’s stepped away…”

The man stepped back again, then turned and ran away without even considering stabbing Hakuryuu. Judar shook his head in disappointment.

“Is that really…?”

“Yeah,” Judar said. “Come on. Unless you want it to blow you up?”

Hakuryuu didn’t need to be told twice.

The orb exploded behind them, tearing stones from their foundation and splinters from doors. The stones hit the ground one after another in a satisfying rhythm.

“I’ve been wanting to try it out since I saw it in a scroll,” Judar said. “Figures that everyone I could test it on is too much of a coward to even fight for themselves.”

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Hakuryuu said. His smile betrayed his words.

“Look at you,” Judar said. “You thought it was cool, didn’t you!”

“…A little.”

Judar smiled triumphantly. “Can’t have you forgetting how good of a magician I am.”

“Show off.”

Judar didn’t care much about what happened - if another starved soldier wanted to try again, he was ready for round two - but it left Hakuryuu guarded. Judar’s borg would protect him as long as he stayed close, but he wasn’t content just relying on that. He liked to be able to protect himself, which meant staying on his guard with his good hand wrapped around his sword’s hilt just in case.

Hakuryuu didn’t want to wait to harass the city government. To him, sunset was just as good of a time to be working as sunrise, despite those both being the worst times possible for everyone else.

The city government’s headquarters doubled as the territory lord’s home, so it went without saying that someone would always be home, even if they were just servants.

Unfortunately, servants didn’t recognize him in the same way ex-soldiers did.

“I apologize, sir, but my lord is currently dining. No guests are permitted.”

“Bring him out here,” Hakuryuu said. “For an urgent matter related to the ownership of this land.”

The servant fretted for a moment, then muttered an unintelligible apology and scurried inside.

“You scared him off,” Judar said.

“I didn’t. He’s just decided to do his job properly. Really, being intimidated by strangers at the door when his only job is to answer doors.”

Judar laughed.

It took a couple minutes for the nervous servant to return, but when he did he prostrated himself before them.

“I d-deeply apologize for my rudeness, Your Highness. P, please come this way.”

Hakuryuu quickly motioned for the servant to stand to lead them into the house.

It wasn’t small like a cheap inn, but it wasn’t big like a palace either. It was in the awkward place between them that made it hard to describe.

One thing was for sure: no high-ranking official in Rakushou would live in such a small and dirty home. It was Judar’s first time in a small town, and if they were all like this, he’d be fine if it was his last.

Their destination was a small sitting room a tea set arranged neatly on the room’s short table.

The city lord turned out to be a timid woman instead of the gruff man they’d both been expecting. She was bowing deeply when they entered, and even when Hakuryuu told her to stand she kept her face hidden behind her sleeves in a way that reminded Judar of Kougyoku. She took a shaky breath and forced her hands to her side, then spoke.

“I humbly apologize for the rudeness of my servant,” she said quietly. Though her voice was steady, her hands were shaking against the hems of her sleeves. “I don’t have much, but please, help yourselves to all you may desire.”

“This town is under your jurisdiction, correct?” Hakuryuu asked, crossing his arms. “You’re responsible for the unruly state of it.”

She hung her head, accepting his words.

“Give me all the records you have from the past year,” Hakuryuu ordered.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” she said, bowing once more, then turned to her servant. “Please see that they’re comfortable while I gather the records.”

The servant nodded. The silence they were treated to was anything but comfortable.

Minutes passed with no change - with no one talking and no one drinking the tea the servant so carefully poured, it was enough to bore anyone. Judar glanced at Hakuryuu.

He looked determined, but his rukh was a little tired. If Judar yawned he’d probably follow soon after. But even then there was no way he’d relax.

It didn’t matter much to Judar because he knew his borg would always be there, but Hakuryuu didn’t have one. Someone could really kill him if they timed it right, so for once he had the right to be on his guard.

For someone to try taking Hakuryuu’s life just after they’d killed Koumei and Kouha was really bad luck. Even so, the determination to fight was the only thing reflected in Hakuryuu’s eyes now.

That was the face he’d gotten attached to so long ago, the one Judar was chasing as he searched for another war. He should be enjoying this more.

“Hey, Hakuryuu. What’re you gonna do with those records?” Judar asked. The servant stiffened at his words, but Hakuryuu just smiled.

“What do you think?”

Judar smiled back. “You’re right.”

She came back with an armful of scrolls. She set them on the sitting table one by one, briefly explaining what they were as she did.

“Population. Imports. Exports. Education. Agriculture. Crime.”

“Is this all?”

“These are all of what’s happened since I took my father’s place.”

“When was that?”

“He died four years ago.”

Hakuryuu nodded curtly. His seemingly uninterested response only made her more nervous, and her eyes flicked to Judar. She paled instantly. By her rukh he could tell that she knew damn well who he was despite his lack of introduction.

She gulped, lips trembling. Though Judar’s gaze froze her in place, it didn’t stop there. An understanding passed through her face. She gulped, then tried once more, her little hands clenching wrinkles into her gown. “I… I have a confession to make.”

“Go on,” Hakuryuu said, interest piqued.

“I… no, we… as a province, we haven’t been as trusting as we should. It wasn’t my idea, but… th, they wish to leave the country. The time that we were our own country is something that is fresh in the minds of many, and though Lord Kouen had given us a better life than that, right now… many cannot say that of your rule, Your Highness. B, but of course that is not my opinion. If you’d like, I can s-spy on them for you…” 

She prostrated herself before him, hands and face on the floor. For once Hakuryuu didn’t motion that standing was fine. He kept a hand on the hilt of his sword and looked down on her trembling figure.

“How long have they been conspiring?”

“S-since Your Highness deemed sirens equal to humans. I of course… agree with Your Highness’s sentiment. Sirens are our equals. I was s-so scared for my city! What would happen if we were the only ones in the region who didn’t leave Kou? We’d be as good as dead!”

“Can I really trust you?” Hakuryuu asked.

“Y, yes, Your Highness. Anything you ask of me will be done.”

Judar rolled his eyes. Like that’d work. It was too late.

“Spineless,” Hakuryuu said. “You’ve let others walk over you, too scared to do what you think is right. Or are you just lying to me? Couldn’t it be that you’re just the same as them, and are just a convincing actor?”

Her back heaved as her composure broke. Somewhere between a wail and a sob, she cried into the floor. It was as pathetic as it was futile. No matter what she said or did now, Hakuryuu’s mind was made up.

“I’ll give you one last choice, in case it’s true that you’re telling the truth.”

Her shoulders shivered, but she didn’t dare raise her face from the ground to see if Hakuryuu’s face showed any sign of mercy.

“Decide. Do you want to be killed now? Or do you want to live as a prisoner for your blatant act of treason? You can aid the empire as a subject of experimentation, if you truly want to atone.”

“Come on, Hakuryuu,” Judar said, shaking his head. “Is that even a question? That place is a hundred times worse than death.”

Hakuryuu laughed lowly. “Maybe you’re right. Now, what have you decided?”

“I’m… ahh, I’m scared… Please, have m-mercy on me…” 

“You’re asking the wrong person for mercy,” Judar said. He readied his staff. He didn’t mean to deprive her of the final choice that Hakuryuu had granted her, but his magoi was low. Taking her to Rakushou was a luxury he didn’t have. While her head was face down, he pointed it at her. They were too close for him to miss.

He took his eyes off the sobbing girl for a moment and looked her servant in the eye. Hakuryuu told him before that servants weren’t supposed to let their liege die first. But this servant was probably bound with money instead of trust.

The servant’s shivering was obvious even from a distance. He balked when their eyes met, taking slow steps backwards. When Judar didn’t react to that, he turned and ran as fast as he could. Judar sighed.

For every human with conviction, there was one with nothing but cowardice. If he’d tried to save his lord, maybe Judar would’ve given them both the chance to escape. He could tell by their rukh that they wouldn’t betray Hakuryuu any further.

But if Hakuryuu wanted them dead, that was fine too.

“Let me, Judar.”

Judar let his arm fall to his side. Hakuryuu removed his sword from its sheath. Though it made a sound, she didn’t react. He crouched down beside her and lifted her head by her hair.

“Judar’s right. This is the easier option for a coward.”

He tugged her up roughly and swung his sword through her neck. Her pretty rug absorbed her blood readily, as did the white of Hakuryuu’s robe. Hakuryuu untangled his hand from her hair and stood, finally letting his guard down with a sharp sigh. Judar urged the dead woman’s rukh to gather in his hand from behind Hakuryuu’s back. He closed his palm once it obeyed and felt the warmth of her guilt and fear flow through him.

“One down, and… how many to go?”

Hakuryuu shrugged. “I don’t know, but it shouldn’t take long. It’s faster if we get them all together and execute them. I haven’t thought of replacements yet, but I can handle governing the region myself while the seats are vacant. It’s good that we came now. Any longer and they could have enthroned Koumei, or tried some other manner of tricks.”

Hakuryuu left the bloodied body on the floor as he looked through the scrolls and paced. With each step he took, the blood on his white robe dried more.

“There should be a study somewhere,” Hakuryuu mumbled. “I doubt they’ll all own up to it as fast as she did, so I’d like to get my thoughts in order before confronting them.”

“Do you _need_ to confront them? We’re just gonna kill them all anyway.”

“I need a reason. For us to be right. Normally all treason is wrong, but if there are enough of them…”

Hakuryuu re-rolled the scroll and took another. It too was covered in drying blood, and he had to squint to make the text out over the deep red. 

“No. Considering the fact that they didn’t go to Koumei, despire being in the perfect position to do so, it’s highly likely that this was orchestrated by King Sinbad. But we have no proof of that…”

Hakuryuu’s voice trailed off. He hadn’t prepared much for this and it showed in his nervous steps. Even if he was confidant killing an inexperienced and young governor for treason, killing every official in a region would catch Sinbad’s attention in the worst way.

As much as Judar wanted to be angry, he was tired. He’d used a lot of magic today and could still feel it. In his tired mind, Sinbad’s move was more impressive than scary.

“Let’s deal with it tomorrow,” Judar said. “Unless you wanna look like you don’t sleep when you confront them.”

“Some things are more important than sleep,” Hakuryuu said and sighed. “I don’t mean to stay awake until morning. I just want to look through these scrolls first.”

Judar glanced at the pile of blood-stained scrolls. It looked like it’d take all night to read to him, but if Hakuryuu said it wouldn’t take too long, he’d let it be. He unrolled a scroll curiously and glanced through it.

It turned out to be the scroll on population statistics. He glanced through the numbers absentmindedly. “The war really did a number on these guys, didn’t it?”

“Could lead to a loss in morale,” Hakuryuu mumbled. “We didn’t have the means to properly compensate the families of soldiers after the war like Kouen always did. Civil wars tend to do the most damage, and we didn’t take the Seven Seas Alliance up on their offer for a loan, either. It had too many strings attached. We could win the war without them so we should be able to deal with the aftermath without them.”

Sometimes it was hard to tell if Hakuryuu was worried for a reason or if he was just upset over the small stuff, but this time he had the right to be nervous. They had real evidence of an uprising now in the governor’s confession, and Judar had no doubt that the documents before them had ample written proof to go along with it.

The bright side was that on this trip to get rid of the rotten parts of the empire, they’d easily found them one by one. Biting them off and spitting them out was simple as long as they could find them.

Hakuryuu could definitely do it. Judar let himself relax and yawned. Hakuryuu stifled a yawn soon after.

“Come on, let’s sleep,” Judar said.

“Just a minute.”

Judar waited, growing more tired by the second. He was a little hungry, too, but everywhere he could get something would probably be closed by now. He doubted Hakuryuu had much of an appetite anyway.

Needless to say, he was waiting for longer than ‘just a minute.’ It took a couple hours for Hakuryuu to find the evidence he’d been looking for: strange records of boats being absent for the amount of time it’d take to go to Sindria and come back, meetings with the same notes repeated despite the issue having been resolved already.

“She wasn’t very careful,” Hakuryuu said. “She may have been telling the truth. If she had come forward of her own volition, without us ever needing to come here, I would have let her live without punishment.”

“Killing her was useful,” Judar said. “Good example and all. Maybe next time the coward will come forward.”

“Hopefully there won’t be a next time.”

Judar yawned once more. With their work done, he could finally get some rest. “Can we just sleep here? I don’t feel like finding a room.”

“…You’d sleep in a dead woman’s bed?”

“You wouldn’t?”

“We’re getting a room. Come on.”

“Fine. But you’re finding it,” Judar said through another yawn. Just because Hakuryuu could live off of a couple hours of sleep a night didn’t mean he could. Especially not after using all that magoi.

Judar let Hakuryuu lead him around the city through the dark until they found a hotel. It was shady both on the inside and outside, but they probably weren’t going to find much better. Judar lay on the small bed first thing and groaned in disapproval. It was uncomfortably hard.

“We really should’ve just stayed where we were.”

“You’re welcome to head back yourself.”

Judar didn’t move from his spot until Hakuryuu tossed him tightly a folded robe from his bag to change into. When he stood to do so, he wobbled. His hand flew to the wall to keep himself from falling over.

The sound caught Hakuryuu’s attention. “Judar? Are you alright?”

“Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?”

Hakuryuu raised an eyebrow but let it be. Judar sighed when he did, then turned away. He wiped the sweat from under his bangs.

As much as he didn’t like it, he had to take off the spell to alter his body. He was too tired to fuck now anyway, and it wasn’t like Hakuryuu was in the mood. His mind was too full of what they’d need to do tomorrow to think of sex, and that’d probably be the case for awhile.

The hotel had a shared bathroom a long hall away from the guest rooms instead of a private bathroom, an obvious marker of its poor quality. The bathroom door didn’t have a lock, either. But it didn’t need one if all he needed to do was get rid of his magic under his robe.

The feeling of relief as his body melted into something more simple was like taking a deep breath for the first time in months. 

Trying aberrant magic and transfer magic on top of it without ever taking magoi from his stores was too much, but he hadn’t gotten the chance all day. It was only the excited rukh around them giving him its power that’d kept him from falling over near the end, and now that he was free of that strain, he let himself fall gracelessly to the ground to catch his breath.

The girl had been a poor vessel. Her rukh held more regret than magoi and was only making him feel worse. He took magoi from the Musta’sim sirens within himself, too tired to make out their whispers. They were getting quieter and quieter as time went on. Good.

He was tired even with the additional magoi. Eating and sleeping. Those were next.

Keeping that body for so long was stupid. He had a war to prepare for. Forget Reim, they’d end up fighting Sindria much sooner. Yamraiha hadn’t been afraid to meet him face to face, and unless they were bluffing, there was more where she came from.

Judar forced his mindset to shift to needing to save magoi. He still had enough to live, but to win against sirens he’d probably need more. Especially if Reim decided to side with the Seven Seas Alliance. If it looked like the Seven Seas Alliance was going to win anyway, they’d probably start currying his favor.

Ugh.

He used the wall as support to stand back up. Changing his body changed his blood flow as well, but it was adjusting well. The only real side effect was dizziness. It’d be fine if he kept it like this. He had black rukh from the sea to use, too. He wouldn’t run out of magoi. He just needed to manage it better.

It took time to collect his thoughts. It was good that Hakuryuu planned to get rid of so many people. Even if he sent them to prison, no one would report it if Judar killed them for magoi. Transferring them all there would be difficult, but they could also just do it the traditional way with horses and carriages.

How like him, to look forward to people dying for that.

Judar left the cramped room and felt around in the dark for the door to their room. First on the left, second on the left, and… third on the left. That was it.

Their room was lit only by a paper lantern on the first floor of the hotel outside - that was to say, not by much. The oil lamp was all burnt out, too. He could make out Hakuryuu’s figure seated on the bed but not his expression when he returned.

“Bet you’re wishing we would’ve stayed there,” Judar said as he sat beside Hakuryuu, shoulders touching. “Bed’s hard, isn’t it?”

“What, you can’t handle it?”

“Of course I can,” Judar said, closing his eyes. “I can sleep on rocks. But what about your royal back?”

“I’ll be fine,” Hakuryuu said. Judar’s eyes adjusted well enough to see his unsure expression. The bed wouldn’t bother Hakuryuu. He knew that. And they already had the evidence he’d been looking for all evening. So there wasn’t anything he still had to worry about. Judar yawned.

“It might be best if we imprison the rest of the traitors,” Hakuryuu said. “It’d be too easy for King Sinbad to twist executing them as an act of cruelty.”

“Keeping them in the research facility’s way worse,” Judar said. “But it’s more suitable for traitors.” He let his head rest on Hakuryuu’s shoulder. It was softer than the bed, but not by much. 

Hakuryuu raised his arm to Judar’s back. Even through fabric he was warm and easy to relax into.

“Lay down,” Judar said. He pushed back a little towards the bed, trying to bring Hakuryuu down with him. Hakuryuu played along.

“If you were concerned about me being able to sleep, why am I the one on the bed?” Hakuryuu asked. “From here, it feels like you’re laying on me on purpose. So much for being alright with sleeping on rocks.”

“I’m fine with the bed! But it’s small, you know?” Judar complained.

“You’re heavy. Lay on some clothes if the bed bothers you.”

Judar groaned. He didn’t feel like moving. He buried his head in the sole pillow, just to the side of Hakuryuu’s head. A slight improvement. Hakuryuu’s shoulder wasn’t bony, but it was uncomfortable to try to sleep on all the same.

“Did you do something?” Hakuryuu asked.

“Huh?”

“Your magoi flow seems a little different.”

“Have you been practicing?”

“Not really. But it’s hard to not notice when you’re laying on me,” Hakuryuu said.

Judar closed his eyes. “You want everyone to be imprisoned, right? It’ll be easier to transfer them all there with a simpler body.”

“I can just have them sent the normal way.”

“No, I can do it,” Judar said.

Hakuryuu wrapped his arm around Judar’s back and moved him off and onto the bed. “Get some sleep,” he said.

Judar opened his eyes to watch Hakuryuu get back up. “You’re really gonna stay up all night?”

“No,” Hakuryuu said. He rummaged through his bag and removed his bloodied robe. “It’s not very clean, but it should be big enough to sleep on if you’re uncomfortable.”

Judar felt his face heat up. Hakuryuu wasn’t normally that considerate, and Judar was stuck between wanting to feel annoyed that Hakuryuu didn’t believe he could sleep on anything and flattered that he wanted to make him comfortable. Too tired to organize his thoughts, Judar accepted the robe rather meekly, putting it between the stiff bed and his hip.

Hakuryuu was right. It wasn’t as comfortable as Hakuryuu’s bed or even a mediocre inn in Rakushou, but it felt a lot better.

Hakuryuu lay back down beside him. The bed could fit two people, but not by much and no matter how they moved they’d still be touching. It wasn’t luxurious, but being so close was welcome to half-asleep mind.

Judar drifted off to a light sleep. He woke every time Hakuryuu moved, and he was sure he woke Hakuryuu every time he moved, too. Renting two rooms would’ve been more comfortable in that it’d be easier to sleep without being crowded too close together. But there was something calming about hearing Hakuryuu’s soft sigh when he found a comfortable place, even if he just moved again ten minutes later.

He needed to have the strength to use large-scale transfer magic, so sleeping would be ideal. But he could understand why Hakuryuu was having trouble past their uncomfortable sleeping conditions.

Hakuryuu was doing well in not letting Koumei and Kouha’s fate distract him from his goal. Putting them behind himself and focusing on their current enemy was the way to go. But Judar couldn’t blame him if he had trouble sleeping after all that’d happened.

Awake for the fifth time, Judar took Hakuryuu’s hand in his. He pulled it up to his lips and kissed between his knuckles lightly.

It was difficult to say in words, but he’d always be there after a long day. Even if it was a long night too.

Hakuryuu didn’t wake him again that night.


	32. Chapter 32

They left for the region’s capital - Youshuu Proper, the province’s namesake - with evidence in hand. Sore backs weren’t enough to keep them from finishing what they’d come to the south to do.

Food, however, was.

“I’m hungry,” Judar complained. “Magic’s best on a full stomach.”

“Strange that it had no effect on your ability to bring us here.”

“Yeah, well, I thought the food might be better here.”

“It probably is,” Hakuryuu admitted. The dump they were in yesterday couldn’t compare in terms of class. Anyone could see that, even him. “But that doesn’t mean that we’ll be spending all morning eating leisurely.”

Judar rolled his eyes.

Despite Hakuryuu’s words, he didn’t tell Judar to hurry up when it came to actually eating. He also took the time to relax. The city was much more like Rakushou than it was the port town and although it was home to many of the rebels who wished for Hakuryuu to lose the throne, it had an atmosphere that was easier to relax in. More luxuries that money could buy, too. Warm tea, salty fish, and baskets of different buns and dumplings were trademarks of the region, just similar enough to food in Rakushou that they were easy to eat at the same time as they were new.

The bags under Hakuryuu’s eyes didn’t make him look very intimidating, but Judar was sure he didn’t look any better. Even if they announced that the rebels would face imprisonment, it’d be the least intimidating sentence ever. So it was best if Hakuryuu drank as much strong tea as possible before visiting the capitol. As for Judar, he was content just eating. Famous or not, the tea just tasted like dirt.

After breakfast they went straight to their destination.

The Youshuu province’s capitol building could correctly be called a palace; before it was conquered by Kou it probably did house some kind of royalty. He’d never know - all records of the old countries of the east were destroyed once they were conquered. According to Kouen, people would be less likely to rebel if they had no history to fall back on. It did work, for a time. But that time was over now.

Rebelling was only scary if there was nothing and no one there to help if things went sour. That’d been true for many years: under Kouen, even if one region was uneasy, its neighboring regions were sure to be full of Kouen’s dogs. If that weren’t the case, if a rebellion could gain support, Judar could think of many reasons for the former countries within their borders to do so.

Everyone wanted to be a part of something, and rebelling was just the thing to attract victims of the civil war. It didn’t help that every one of Hakuryuu’s new laws had unintentionally damaged them.

Come to think of it, maybe that was Sinbad’s intention when spreading rumors before. He’d spent lots of time with Hakuryuu. Enough to know what would rile him up.

…There was no way, though, right? If Sinbad were that good at this game he’d already be ruling the world.

They were escorted into the palace and bowed at for what felt like an hour.

“Send for an emergency council within the week,” Hakuryuu ordered the personnel without allowing them to stand. “If anyone cannot attend, request that they send someone in their place. Every city in the province must be represented. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Your Majesty. It takes five days’ travel to arrive from the outskirts with the fastest of carriages.”

“Good. I will be back then to lead the council.”

Hakuryuu turned and left, opening the door himself, closing it behind himself and Judar. He’d never let the servants stand.

“In and out, huh?”

“I don’t see a reason to exchange formalities at this point,” Hakuryuu said.

“Are we going to stay here all week, then?”

“I haven’t made preparations for us to be away from Rakushou for much longer,” Hakuryuu said. He stepped out onto the square. There wasn’t the best view of the city from it, but the weather was nice. “I didn’t expect to need to come here. I don’t really trust that they’ll be fine without me, either…”

“I can send you back,” Judar offered.

“What a waste of magoi.” 

It was a waste, but it wasn’t like they had a choice. There was no one Hakuryuu could trust to run the White Palace while he was gone.

“You said you’d be gone for a week, right?”

“Yes. And it’s been four days.”

“Give ‘em a good surprise,” Judar said. “I’ll stay here for the fun stuff.”

“For the whole five days?”

“Why not?”

“I suppose you would enjoy living in a province that’s collectively painted a target on your back.”

Judar grinned. “Don’t worry, I’ll bring you back for the fun part. Unless you’d rather I took care of them myself?”

“Why do I get the feeling that’d be a terrible idea?”

“You’d just end up doing the same thing,” Judar said. “We’re not so different.”

“…Maybe. But I would like to do it anyway. And I don’t want you to stay here alone until then.”

Judar scowled. “If you’re just gonna say it’s dangerous—”

“No, not that. The opposite.”

Judar stared. It wasn’t dangerous enough…?

Oh.

Hakuryuu didn’t shy away from his gaze.

He should be happy.

\---

Reckless as it was, the throne was the best bait in the country. Leaving it unattended while they dealt with business elsewhere was an invitation clear as day.

They’d gone to Samon Island to destroy the need for paranoia. Then left the throne to create it.

That was an act so nonsensical that even Sinbad would have trouble understanding it. But between the two of them, it made perfect sense.

Cleaning up the country was the most valuable duty of the emperor. Whether it was done kindly or not was of no concern. So they’d scrub it clean, leave holes for more dirt to accumulate, then scrub it all down again.

Unlike Kouha, they were asking the right questions: why not?

Five days didn’t take long to pass. Judar needed the time for his body’s magoi to stabilize. Hakuryuu didn’t sleep much. He was busy looking over documents and writing out various proposals and notes of other kinds. He probably wouldn’t use any of them. He just liked to be busy, and without a kitchen, writing was the best way to keep his hands moving.

They arrived back at the province’s palace bright and early on their last day.

There wasn’t much point in looking interested in the proceedings, since they were going to end it just the same no matter what anyone tried to say. Still, Hakuryuu acted as an emperor should, taking the end table seat and waiting patiently with Judar standing behind him. The others came soon after.

None of them expected that Hakuryuu would be so early, and no one was happy to see him there. Most already looked resigned. Ready to die.

Maybe they’d heard about the girl already. Most likely they had.

Well, that was what they got for being traitors to the throne.

“Is that everyone?” Hakuryuu asked once everyone in the room settled into their seats. There was an empty one still. Probably that of the girl they’d killed.

“No, Your Majesty,” someone said from across the table. “The owner of this manor is yet to arrive.”

“Hm.”

Another five minutes of painful silence and he shuffled in.

Though everyone’s eyes were trained on him, all he did was wrinkle his nose. Hakuryuu was probably in his seat. Who cares. He didn’t bow.

“Are you Youshuu’s governor?” Hakuryuu asked. Judar didn’t have to look to see his cold smile.

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“Sit.”

He did not. “Your Highness, I have already heard.”

“It reflects well on you that you didn’t flee,” Hakuryuu said. “However, I still have questions. And I’m sure that you understand that I would value your answers.”

“I will not answer,” he said.

“And why not?”

“You… are the enemy of Kou,” he said. “I will tell you nothing.”

“I am the emperor of Kou and the son of the first emperor Ren Hakutoku. There is no possible way that I’m enemy to the country.”

“No. You aren’t his son. I served under Emperor Hakutoku. You’re not his son, but a demon who took his place.”

“Hm,” Hakuryuu said. “That’s all?” The lack of a real answer unnerved them all more than if he’d gotten angry.

The same man responded for them all again. “If you have come to Youshuu only to declare us guilty and execute us all, then please, get it over with.” 

“I dunno,” Judar said. “After we came all this way? That’d be pretty boring.”

“Be quiet, Judar.” Hakuryuu rose. “I am beginning to wonder. Can no one else in this room speak?” He walked a couple steps to stand behind the back of a quivering wrinkled man and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Tell me. Who do you take orders from?”

He didn’t respond. Hakuryuu moved his hand from his shoulder to the back of his head and took his hair in his hand. 

“Answer me.”

Still no answer.

Hakuryuu pushed his head to the table, removed his sword from its sheath, and pushed it against his skin. He removed the head cleanly. Only Judar watched.

It was a miracle no one tried to escape. Then again, Judar would just freeze the doors if they moved.

Hakuryuu sighed. “I don’t particularly find enjoyment in killing. I only want what’s best for the country, just as my father did. He believed that our continued unity is what’s best for the country.”

Trust Hakuryuu to explain that only after killing someone.

He removed his blood-sprayed hand from the dead man’s hair and walked the next few steps to behind another man. “I don’t believe you value my father’s words. If that were the case you wouldn’t be making plans for independence. If believed him but still desired change, you would be making plans for removing me from the throne, and giving it to my sister or Koumei instead. That’s the logical thing to do. But I found no evidence for plans like that… every paper that I reviewed showed changes in industry based on self-sufficiency. Why would that be the case if you love Kou as much as you say you do?”

That got to them. Or maybe it was the head on the table. Either way, they were listening now.

“Should anyone give me the real, full truth, I would excuse their family of crime,” Hakuryuu said. “I greatly value honesty.”

No answers again. Now Hakuryuu was getting irritated.

“I would not have come all this way if I were lying,” Hakuryuu said. “I would have had Judar execute you all. I wanted to hear what you all had to say, so I came myself. What’s the point in being tight-lipped now? All it will cause is the death of your loved ones. Unless… they’ve already escaped?”

Their rukh chirped wildly. “Bingo,” Judar said. “It’s exactly like you thought it’d be, isn’t it? They’ve already hightailed it across the sea.”

“Seems so,” Hakuryuu agreed. “We’re done here, then.”

“Any last words?” Judar asked.

“You don’t value honesty,” the province’s high governor quietly said. “You value the words you want to hear.”

“Okay, cool. Noted.” Judar took his wand from his robes and waved it a bit to gather their scared rukh. He pointed it at someone’s head. “Thalg al-Salos.” Another. His mouth dried as his staff collected all the moisture it could from the room to freeze. Another. Until they were all dead and their leftover rukh was firmly within Judar’s hands.

Hakuryuu didn’t pay their bodies any mind. “Let’s head back,” he said the second the final ice spear connected.

“Yeah.” It’d been such a nice room, but now it was ruined with the ferrous stench of blood.

If they wanted to be independent so badly, they could clean it themselves.

Judar opened a transfer circle straight to the palace halls. Hakuryuu wasn’t in the mood to waste time.

The hard sound of Hakuryuu’s boots hitting the Imperial Palace’s stone floors caused everyone’s backs to stiffen.

The guards that hadn’t fled were still standing guard. Hakuryuu walked past, glancing over them with a sour face. They refused to meet his eyes, fearing becoming more blood spatters on his clothes.

He was in a poor mood and everyone in the palace knew at the sound of his harsh footsteps. That didn’t stop him from going straight to the throne room to see if anything happened in his absence.

Judar doubted anything would. They’d made a wonderful example of Youshuu. No one else should want to cause problems from within the empire.

Hakuryuu spent the rest of the week micromanaging as much of the empire as possible from Rakushou’s throne.

It had only taken a year for the empire’s edges to fall into disarray. He had to work harder or it would spread. Judar knew that. But the thought that Hakuryuu would have to work so hard— harder, even—year after year was disheartening.

Judar didn’t get to spend any time with him. If he was awake he was working. Every day he was out until long past sundown. After a week of that Judar grew tired of waiting for him in their room and joined Hakuryuu by his throne on long nights.

It was more tiring than he thought it’d be listening to politics for nearly twenty hours a day. 

Hakuryuu had to deal with governing the far south of the empire and re-stationing guards, not to mention sending a couple groups of soldiers out to track down the deserting guards. After that he’d check for military deserters. Any trust he’d had before to let the various pieces of the empire take care of themselves was now lost.

Other than that he continued governing as he saw fit. He ordered craftsmen of all kinds and teachers of all subjects to various at-risk areas, most of all Youshuu. Ordered the executions of all family and friends of the executed, even though he knew few would be caught, if any. Most were gone without records of ever boarding a ship. Outside of Kou’s borders, there was little they could do to harm them. The same went for the captains that allowed their escape. It was impossible to execute all the captains of every ship on the coast, since they needed them to fish, so it stopped there.

All and all it was extremely tiring. So much that Judar could barely think of anything else while he was listening to it all. The empire was huge. Its problems were the problems of everyone within its borders, and if they weren’t tended to individually, they’d find some way to get back at the crown for it.

Just thinking about it was exhausting.

Hakuryuu brushed Judar off every time he wanted to talk, even if he talked about the country’s situation in an attempt to help. Talking to him had worked the last time he was stressed. This time he was determined to fix things and saw Judar as nothing more than a distraction from work during the day and from his much needed sleep at night.

Part of Judar wanted to give up and let him be and see how that suited him, but after a month of it concern started to bite away at his annoyance. Humans were more durable than he sometimes gave them credit for, but he was pretty sure that didn’t mean they _should_ test their luck on the edge of survival. Hakuryuu could be a real idiot sometimes, and even though he had to understand he was taking it too far, he still continued to try harder. Judar had known and admired that part of his personality since the beginning. But this time he couldn’t enjoy seeing it.

It just wasn’t that fun watching him overwork himself night and day.

Judar tried to match his zeal for improving the country’s current situation but he zoned out after an hour or two most days, lightheaded from incense and candles blurring his vision. After staying from sunrise to midnight for days, he was seriously feeling it in his legs, too. He steeled his face and forced his eyes to focus on whoever it was Hakuryuu was talking to. If Hakuryuu could do it, he could too.

“Your Highness, I must respectfully ask. Are you sure that there is no one suitable to govern the south? The people will grow weary with nothing but an army to support them.”

“The army is the most suitable. Traitors will always be traitors.”

Army? Judar couldn’t recall when that happened. He wanted to go to sleep.

“I apologize for this anecdote, however… I and many others have family in the south. We wish to make contact even after this tragedy. Will travel be permitted?”

“It can wait until investigations are complete. Only traitors to the throne will be dealt with, so I should hope that you have no reason to worry about your family.”

The conversation ended and the official bowed deeply before shuffling away. Hakuryuu ordered a guard to bring the next person to the throne. Judar’s resolve to stay awake wavered the second it was quiet.

“Judar.”

Judar snapped out of it at the sound of his name. He looked at Hakuryuu on the throne.

“Go to sleep.”

“Huh? No, I’m fine.”

Hakuryuu’s frown deepened. He was fine with not sleeping himself, but the second Judar did it, it wasn’t allowed? How hypocritical. As expected of Hakuryuu.

“At least sit down,” Hakuryuu said. “It’s distracting watching you nod off in the corner of my eye.”

Judar glanced to the other side of the inner palace. There were places to sit far from the throne, but he wouldn’t be able to hear what was going on there. “No,” he said.

“Don’t be so stubborn,” Hakuryuu said. His voice quieted as a guard tottered into the sight, an older man at his side. “You can sit here if you’d like…”

Judar laughed. It was true that the throne was big enough for the both of them. “What, you want to get another round of whining about the throne smelling like fish?”

“It’s easier to find people who don’t belong in the palace then,” Hakuryuu said. Judar was pretty sure it was supposed to be a joke, but it fell flat. His jokes usually did. But they still made Judar smile in a backwards way.

“It’d be pretty funny seeing their faces,” Judar agreed. He joined Hakuryuu on the throne. It was kind of a tight fit and not very comfortable, but it was the most powerful place in the country. There was probably some law against non-royalty sitting in it, but if Hakuryuu didn’t care, neither did Judar.

Besides, it was late. Anyone who did care would probably think it had been a dream upon waking.

Judar could see why Hakuryuu did it like this, scheduling people all through the night. It would never really get rid of the people who had business with the throne, it’d just get through them faster - not only because he was seeing more, but because many weren’t accustomed to working late hours. When they reached the only time Hakuryuu would see them, they couldn't refuse even if it was eleven at night. They arrived tired. They complained less. It was ideal. Except for the fact that Hakuryuu didn’t get any sleep either.

Maybe another part of why he scheduled so late was that Hakuryuu liked proving he was better at not sleeping than most people. Him and his useless talents.

The older man had passed the hall and bowed before them. He tried very hard to not look at Judar, eyes focused solely on Hakuryuu’s side of the throne once he rose to speak.

He stumbled over his words several times as he tried to report the state of some drought or other, both from lack of sleep and disbelief at the scene before him. Hakuryuu listened carefully. His stamina was something else if he could still be paying attention to the most boring appeals in the country so late at night.

Judar closed his eyes as he listened to an extensive proposal of what to do about the drought. He’d spent long days here for several days in a row now and his eyes were begging him for a break. Maybe that was why their voices soon took a dream-like quality, drifting around, turning unintelligible. Good. That way he could sleep.

Wait, wait, no. He couldn’t fall asleep. Judar forced his heavy eyelids open. The candles had dried his eyes uncomfortably, and he opened and closed them hard to try to fix it.

He’d fallen asleep. Judar squinted to make out the person before them. Hakuryuu’s audience had already changed from the timid older guy to a heavily bearded one - judging by his clothes, he was likely an advisor of some sort. He introduced himself.

“Speak quietly,” Hakuryuu ordered.

The advisor balked but obeyed. There was nothing he could do but obey a direct order from the emperor, no matter what it was. Judar smiled from his spot on Hakuryuu’s shoulder, hidden out of view.

He fell back asleep soon after.

Sleep was the best feeling in the world. He was sure of it.

“Judar.”

It was too early to wake up. Judar nestled closer into the softness by his side.

“You’ll be sore if you spend the night here.”

“Already am,” Judar mumbled.

“I’m getting up.”

Judar grabbed the fabric and tried to pull it closer as it moved away. When it finally wrestled its way out of his grip he opened his eyes.

Pitch black.

He wasn’t dreaming, was he? No. He could feel fabric. Dreams didn’t feel like anything.

He moved his legs just to make sure. Stretched them down to his toes. Yes, those were definitely legs. Judar let go of the breath he was holding.

Hakuryuu put his hand on Judar’s shoulder. “Come on.”

When Judar stood he could see a couple dim lights at the other end of the hall - the last candles left. The rest had already burnt out.

“What time is it?” Judar asked.

“Late, I imagine.”

“Duh,” Judar quipped. “I can see that just by looking.” He grabbed onto Hakuryuu’s arm and used it to pull himself up. “Do you ever sleep?”

“Of course I do. Daily.”

“Right. For two hours?”

“Four at the least,” Hakuryuu mumbled. “Usually.”

Judar yawned in response. He had magic to keep up. If he was too exhausted, it’d become difficult. Doing this every day was getting to him. “I’m just going to sleep tomorrow,” Judar said. “All day. It’ll feel so good.”

Hakuryuu sighed and began walking away. Judar closed his eyes and followed his steps. He didn’t need light to do that. He was already used to the dark.

Hakuryuu never argued with him anymore. It continued and continued, the same day repeating, as Judar wandered Rakushou to make sure nothing was amiss and Hakuryuu listened to the frustrations of an empire he couldn’t help.

Then it finally didn’t. Because something changed.

Hakuryuu slept in. It wasn’t surprising, really. It had to happen eventually.

It wasn’t even that surprising when Judar reached over to shake him awake and was met with a blazing hot and sweaty shoulder.

Fever. Definitely a fever.

Judar’s cold hand on his skin was enough for Hakuryuu’s eyes to fly open. He shot awake and tried to get up at the sight of the sun. Judar pulled him back easily.

“Let go,” Hakuryuu mumbled.

“No.”

“I need to…”

“Sleep.”

“No. Work.”

“You have a fever, idiot.”

“I’ll be fine,” Hakuryuu argued. “But the country won’t be if I make it a habit to lay in bed all day.”

Leave it to Hakuryuu to work himself sick and still feel like he hasn’t done enough. Judar let go. “Fine. Go faint in front of all the people you’re still trying to convince you deserve the throne. That’ll teach you.”

Hakuryuu scowled and held out his wooden arm for Judar to tie to the stump. If he wanted to, he could refuse to put it on just to be an asshole. But Hakuryuu could get someone else to do it just as easily, so doing that would be pretty pointless.

Judar tied his arm on, then got dressed and followed Hakuryuu out. He didn’t like playing damage control, but he didn’t actually want Hakuryuu to faint in the middle of the inner palace either. Not without someone to catch him when he fell.

If the country’s officials cared about Hakuryuu’s health, they did a damn good job of hiding it. No one argued when Hakuryuu let too many people come in like usual. If he spoke one on one instead of trying to win over larger groups at the same time, he might have more success. Judar didn’t need to tell him that to know that his answer would be that it would take too long.

When Hakuryuu stood to get lunch, he faltered. Judar moved quickly to keep him from falling on his face, and Hakuryuu’s hand gripped the fabric of Judar’s clothes easily while his prosthetic arm fell limply to his side. If he didn’t have the magoi to move that, he didn’t have the energy to be ruling.

“Admirable as it is that you came all the way here anyway, I’m taking you back,” Judar said quietly so as to not humiliate him in front of the people he was trying to prove himself to. He was tired of being on Hakuryuu’s ignore list. “Alright?”

Hakuryuu didn’t respond but let Judar lead him by a hand on his back. He’d get food for him after he slept.

Once he was back in his room, Judar took his key.

Hakuryuu wasn’t happy, to say the least. “I can’t just take a day off,” he said. “I have work to do.”

“I can do it,” Judar said. “Since you’d just keep getting up and getting worse otherwise.”

“You don’t know how to rule,” Hakuryuu mumbled. His pouting might have been cute if his eyes and face weren’t so puffy and red - he looked as terrible as he sounded.

“Come on, give me some credit. I watch you do it all the time. I can at least make sure it doesn’t get worse.”

“…Fine…”

Judar smiled. Hakuryuu wasn’t as stubborn as usual when he couldn’t think for fever. It’d get old fast, but for now it was useful.

He walked to the inner palace, passing the guards easily, and sat down in the throne before anyone could ask where Hakuryuu was.

“Alright! Starting today I’m your emperor,” Judar said. None of the officials returned his smile.

“…Where is Emperor Hakuryuu?” A man that Judar recognized as one of the more annoying advisors asked.

“Taking the rest of the day off. So I’m emperor in his place.”

One particularly rich looking man cleared his throat. “Lord Priest, you are not of the Ren family.”

“Gyokuen married in and made it to the throne. What’s the problem?”

“…That was a special circumstance. Emperor Hakuryuu is unmarried, as I’m sure you’re aware… You have no official relation to His Majesty.”

Judar waved a hand dismissively. “Hakuryuu said that I’m in charge of his responsibilities today. So tell me what you’re all here for.”

The hall quieted. Judar frowned.

“That was an order.”

“Lord Priest, you have no official power,” an advisor said with a barely concealed smile. “At best, you’re His Majesty’s _attendant_. You have no military ranking nor bureaucratic position. We are not so stupid as to think you would really be a suitable substitute in His Majesty’s mind…”

Oh, right. That.

They might have a point there, actually.

Judar kept a straight face regardless. “And what would make you acknowledge it?”

“Proof, of course.”

“Proof can wait until tomorrow.” Judar didn’t want to say it to the whole room of vultures, but Hakuryuu wasn’t really in the state to sign papers. “Until then, can’t you all be satisfied knowing that if I didn’t have permission I could get executed for this?”

A few officials suddenly looked agreeable. They’d be happy to see him die. Happy to see the siren ‘infestation’ leave the palace. They weren’t as violently hostile as the coast’s people, but they were just as hateful. They couldn’t stand the idea of other races in the Kou Empire, let alone other species.

A smirking official in yellow approached him. “Very well. Tell us, Priest, how you plan to deal with the scale black market that has been working its way increasingly far from the coastal cities?”

“By getting rid of it. Same as what Hakuryuu’s been doing.”

“Even knowing that it’s the only thing holding the economy up in those regions? All the way to Qishan, no less. Scales are such a valuable commodity that they alone can make up for the blunder of upsetting the Seven Seas Alliance, and yet…”

“Would you rather cower to the Alliance with your tail between your legs?” Judar asked. If they knew he was just parroting things he’d heard Hakuryuu say back at them, they didn’t show it.

“No, of course not. But scales are just as valuable as Imuchakk or Artemyra’s luxuries had been. They fill the niche that foreign goods left.”

“So does Reim’s trade.” Judar wasn’t certain that it was the case, but if he’d learned anything from watching Hakuryuu deal with officials, it was that a false but confidant answer was better than a true but uncertain one.

The officials were cross about how well he was keeping up, huffing and rolling their eyes when they thought he wasn’t looking. Once again, those who never left the palace showed a remarkably short memory when it came to his abilities. If they’d seen his magic they wouldn’t be so quick to insult him.

“…Lord Priest, the people do not want Reim’s luxuries. They are a downgrade.”

“How spoiled. Go to Balbadd if you want gold. There’s still plenty there.”

They didn’t look too happy at being called spoiled by Judar, who was easily the most spoiled person in the room. But they bit their lips, and as the day came to a close, so too did the mouths of Kou’s people. With Judar’s curt dismissals he was finished in time for dinner.

Being in the hot and stuffy inner palace put him in the mood for cold noodles. He had some made and brought them to eat with Hakuryuu.

Who was, of course, still sleeping. He continued to sleep even when Judar held noodles above his nose.

That was probably a good thing.

He ate on the bed and wiped his mouth with his sleeve just because Hakuryuu wasn’t awake to tell him not to. When he finished he tried dangling some of Hakuryuu’s portion above his nose again to see if he was hungry this time.

Apparently he was, as his eyes finally opened.

“…What are you doing?”

“Oh, you woke up this time.”

“ _This_ time?” 

Judar pulled the noodles back. “Here, I brought you dinner.”

Hakuryuu sat up and looked at the bowl of noodles dubiously.

“Hey! I just brought it! Not poisoned it. C’mon, eat up.”

“…Thank you.”

Hakuryuu ate slowly and a few times looked like he wanted to reach for water. So Judar brought water, too.

“How much time has passed?” Hakuryuu asked when he was finished.

“Not too much. It’s just past sunset. I already took care of all your work. By the way, you should give me a title so they listen better.”

“No need. I’ll be back in tomorrow.”

“Not sure if you’re hearing yourself, but your voice’s scratchy as hell,” Judar said. “I doubt anyone else could understand you. And you look like you still have a fever. Might as well catch up on your sleep while it lasts.” 

“I feel much better already,” Hakuryuu said. “It’d be shameful to take so much time off.”

“But your voice still sounds sick? Honestly, it’d look way worse if you went in there like this than if you just waited a couple days. But I guess if you really wanna faint in front of them all, go for it. I won’t catch you this time!”

Hakuryuu sighed. “You’re probably right.” He set his chopsticks down, finished. He’d eaten half his noodles. “I really shouldn’t have gotten sick at a time like this.”

“I dunno. I saw it coming.” Judar picked up the plates. “Anything else you want while I’m out?”

“It’s unlike you to ask,” Hakuryuu said.

“Shut up. Forget I did.”

“No, wait. Please get me something to read. If you’re going to insist I stay in here until I’m recovered, I mean.”

“Sure.”

Hakuryuu was asleep again by the time Judar was back. He sighed and placed the half dozen scrolls he brought on a chest. He didn’t know what Hakuryuu liked to read for fun so he brought what Judar would read if reading were fun: adventure scrolls.

He blew out the oil lamp and turned in early. Ruling was tiring.

When he was sick, Hakuryuu slept as much as Judar. He was also needy as hell.

The first thing to go was his short-term shame. He curled too close at night, getting his sweat all over Judar, and didn’t register Judar moving to the edge of the bed to try to get some sleep himself, because he did the same thing again. Being emperor was exhausting, even for a few days. He needed all the sleep he could get.

Hakuryuu woke him the next day, scolding him for sleeping in.

“I’m emperor now,” Judar mumbled. “I get to choose when to wake up.”

“That’s exactly why you’re not emperor. The prime minister has fewer opportunities to mess up. Come on, get up.”

“Prime minister…?”

“Yes. You were right. It’s stupid of you to try to rule as you are. As such, I’m temporarily appointing you prime minister.”

“Uh, thanks?”

“It means you can’t sleep in.”

Judar groaned. “Never mind. Take it back.”

Hakuryuu laughed. It sounded weird with his stuffy nose. When was the last time he heard Hakuryuu laugh?

Judar felt Hakuryuu’s forehead. Still hot. Still sweaty. Probably only felt well enough to nag. “Well, whatever,” he said. “Can’t you at least write it up so they don’t complain that I have no right to tell them what to do this time?”

Hakuryuu nodded, went over to his desk and scribbled something on parchment he’d left out before getting sick. He handed it to Judar once he was dressed.

“By the way, where did you put my key?” Hakuryuu asked. “It wasn’t in your pocket. You didn’t lose it, did you?”

“Nah. Just hid it. Gotta keep your stubborn ass sleeping somehow.”

Hakuryuu scowled. “That isn’t necessary. Give it back.”

“Maybe tonight,” Judar said. “If you’re good.”

“Judar!”

He laughed. “I’ll bring you lunch. See you later.”

Once the door was firmly shut Judar pulled both keys from the back of his rarely worn shoes, locked the door with one, and put them both comfortably in his pocket afterwords.

Payback for locking him up for months when he first surfaced.

\---

The only ones enjoying the turn of events were the officials who were happy to see Judar’s sleepless face as opposed to his usual carefree energy.

They were less happy with it when he snapped at them for every stupid thing they said.

No one was any more cooperative now that Judar was prime minister. Within the first hour he was accused of forging the letter, of killing Hakuryuu and forging the letter, and of killing Hakuryuu then forging the letter then imprisoning the old prime minister, who just so happened to be out of town, which meant it was _definitely_ a siren conspiracy.

Humans. They were the same as ever. He wasn’t really sure why he was bothering after an hour of it, but they gave up eventually.

“P… Prime Minister, this proposal requires your… signature…”

He didn’t actually have a signature.

“Prime M-Minister, a letter has arrived from Qishan.”

He hated reading.

“Prime Minister, the head of the Kouga clan has requested an audience.”

Oh, someone said it without stuttering. Too bad he didn’t care.

He got through the day, but it was more tiring than usual.

Why did the prime minister have to be _important_?

To add insult to injury, Hakuryuu was sleeping with an even hotter fever when he returned again.

He really ought to call a doctor. So he did, while Hakuryuu was too asleep to complain.

The doctor felt his heart and listened to his breathing and other various creepy things. Then determined he needed rest and was not to work for a week’s time.

“Even I could’ve told you that,” Judar said.

“Has His Majesty been coughing?”

“Not much. Voice sounds like shit, though.”

“This is the season sickness start to go around,” the doctor said. “Most likely this is caused by wind heat. Chrysanthemum tea would do His Majesty well.”

“Got it. Make some.”

“Yes, Lord Priest.”

“Lord Prime Minister now. Also, bring some snacks. I’m hungry.”

“…I see. Understood.” 

The doctor was back with tea and roasted chestnuts before long. Judar took it and shooed him off.

He set the tea down and stirred some of Hakuryuu’s silver around in it absentmindedly while waiting for him to wake up. Then he got impatient and woke him anyway.

“Hakuryuu, I got tea.”

Hakuryuu sighed and blinked awake. Judar brought the cup over.

“Do you like this stuff? Crysa-whatever tea?”

“Did you call for a doctor?” Hakuryuu asked groggily.

“No. Maybe. I tested it for poison so you’d drink it.”

“Why do you think I’m so paranoid?” Hakuryuu mumbled before taking the tea and sipping. A long moment passed, Hakuryuu almost nodding off into his tea twice before he remembered Judar was there. “Thanks anyway. It’s good.”

“Chestnuts, too,” Judar said, handing one to Hakuryuu. “Eat it.”

“Is this lunch?”

“I should’ve asked for peaches too.”

“That’s not really lunch either,” Hakuryuu said slowly.

Judar rolled his eyes. “Whatever. They’re good for all meals. One day you’ll see.”

“I don’t think we’ll ever see eye to eye on that,” Hakuryuu said. He set his empty tea cup down. “Thank you for the tea and snacks.”

“I just got the doctor to get them,” Judar said. He held the bowl of chestnuts closer to Hakuryuu, who took a couple more.

“I know. But you didn’t have to do that on top of taking over my work for me.”

“N-naturally! Doing your work is nothing!”

“Really? And here I was thinking you looked tired.”

“That’s just your fever. I never get tired.”

Hakuryuu smiled. “Yes, of course. How could I forget. Unlike the rest of us you only sleep because you’re bored.” He took the last chestnut and peeled it by its score in a fluid motion, despite his illness. He was good at that. All of Judar’s shells were messy. “You’d better return to the palace. I wouldn’t want them to miss you.”

“Right,” Judar said.

If he could help it he’d rather just spend all day with Hakuryuu. But covering for him was the single condition that Hakuryuu agreed to take it easy on, so he’d go do that instead.

What a pain. If there were anyone else he could trust to do it, he’d make them do it instead. But anyone else would undo all of Hakuryuu’s work in minutes. If only he could will those old generals back to life. He’d love to work them to a second death.

But they weren’t there, so Judar did it all with some complaining. He turned in long after dusk, exhausted. This time Hakuryuu was awake.

“Long day?”

“Next time get some sleep so I don’t have to do all this work.”

“…You’re right. Making myself sick is counterproductive. I was just…”

“Yeah.” 

Hakuryuu smiled.

Judar felt his head. “How come it’s still warm?”

“Unfortunately, it can be a week for sickness to run its course.”

“A whole week? Damn.”

“I can go now,” Hakuryuu said. “You really don’t need to keep me in here any longer.”

“If I could stand to be stuck in here, you can too,” Judar grumbled. “I brought you scrolls to read any everything, see?”

“…Yeah. Thank you.”

“Mm. I’m gonna sleep,” Judar said, and yawned. “Get dinner yourself.”

“I don’t have an appetite. Good night.”

Hakuryuu should eat. He knew that but blew out the lamp anyway and curled up beside him.

He was as warm and sweaty as he’d been the past few days. Judar was starting to wonder if he’d ever get better.

This was the second time in a few years of knowing each other that Hakuryuu had been unwell, and just like the first time it felt like an eternity passed. He really wished the old generals were still here. He wanted a break. Hakuryuu worked too hard. Taking his place was exhausting.

“Judar, you really don’t have to do all this,” Hakuryuu mumbled when he tried to fluff his pillow into something more comfortable. “Though I’m sure you already know that.”

“…For all I care they can go stage a revolution while you’re sick. Dealing with that would be easier than listening to them bitch all day.”

He could barely see Hakuryuu’s expression soften in the darkness. “Awhile back that’s exactly what you would have done.”

“Shut up.”

“Even if I had a wife I wouldn’t expect her to be as dedicated as you.”

Judar put his newly fluffed pillow over Hakuryuu’s head. “You’re sick. Shut up.”

Hakuryuu laughed, but it soon turned into coughing.

“You got like this last time, too,” Judar said. “All sappy. Just go to sleep.” 

Hakuryuu cleared his throat as he pushed Judar’s pillow away. “I don’t remember any of that. What did I say?”

“I don’t remember either,” Judar admitted. “It was just sappy.”

Hakuryuu lay his sweaty forehead on Judar’s shoulder. “I’m really glad you’re here. Doing this alone would be… difficult.”

Judar was pretty sure it’d be impossible. The two of them were barely enough to keep the empire together. One person wouldn’t have a chance.

“I wish we could spend more time together,” Hakuryuu said.

“But you wouldn’t skip work for it.”

“Sorry… I can’t even fix things working this hard. I could never if I worked less. I can’t do anything right by them, and when I do what I think is right, things just get worse.” Hakuryuu sighed. “You helped me get here, too, and for nothing…”

“It wasn’t for nothing. I had a lot of fun.” Judar leaned down to kiss Hakuryuu. “Besides, I think you’re a great emperor… You always look really cool in there. When you’re not about to faint, I mean.” Judar doubted he’d remember the complement. Last time his brain was fried with fever, very little of what happened during his illness made out the other side.

“You’re going to get sick, too,” Hakuryuu said. “You should be more careful. It isn’t fun.”

“Can’t you go a day without nagging?” Judar complained. “There’s no way I’d catch a human cold.” He yawned against Hakuryuu’s cheek. He was tired. He didn’t like working so much. His mind had looped those phrases for as long as Hakuryuu had been sick. Talking to him mostly made up for it, though.

Days passed the same as they’d come, with Hakuryuu seeming to get better then getting worse, rinse and repeat. He made the attending doctor sick. Judar took it as proof that humans colds were wasted on sirens. If they weren’t he’d have gotten sick long ago. Along with magic, it was really the only good thing about it he could think of.

By day six Hakuryuu’s fever was finally gone. He wasted no time taking the throne back. But he did finish at sunset to give himself time to cook his own dinner.

Good. Judar let himself relax as the sizzling of fish filled his ears. He didn’t ruin the empire while Hakuryuu was recovering. Neither did anyone else. They still had ground to stand and fight on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 200k!!!
> 
> youshuu was one of several places mentioned breifly in the kou empire arc, and i had a lot of fun making it into the mess it is now


End file.
